Made in Maryborough- steam locomotives, steam ships, and sugar mills…
The Industrial Centre of the Wide Bay, (and Queensland?)
The first rail lines in Queensland linked farming and mining areas with coastal ports. In the case of Maryborough, it was the lure of gold that originally drove the railway onwards. However, it went on to become a major industrial centre for Queensland and Australia.
About the time of the Gympie gold rush, the sugar industry expanded around Maryborough, and a large timber mill opened. John Walker of Ballarat, Victoria, opened a branch engineering works, capitalising on his experience with mining contracts, for the Gympie mines. John Walker’s Union Foundry (later known as Walkers Limited), pushed for the chance to build locomotives, right at the beginning of the railway construction works in Maryborough. However, Walkers had to wait until 1897, for the first government contract. Walkers Ltd manufactured most of the machinery for local sugar mills, along with locomotives and ships, employing 600 people when in full production. The outbreak of war in 1939 put shipbuilding at the top of Walkers’ business with corvettes including HMAS Rockhampton, Maryborough, Diamantina and frigates such as HMAS Burdekin entering service.
Walkers Ltd constructed some 449 steam locomotives from 1897, until the last one BB18¼ 1089 entered service in 1958 for the Queensland Railways, but also built others for the different state and commonwealth railway systems. Whilst shipbuilding finished in the 1970s modern railway rollingstock construction continued, for local, national and overseas markets. They also built electric suburban, interurban, and tilt trains for use in Queensland, and beyond.
The Railway Empire of Maryborough…
The Maryborough railway had its beginning as a result of the discovery of gold at Gympie in 1867. Both Brisbane and Maryborough had fought a long and protracted battle to be the major port for Gympie and its gold, but Maryborough won out. The line from Maryborough to Gympie was approved by Parliament on 7 August 1877, some ten years after James Nash’s discovery of gold. Construction started on 23 March 1878, with the local firm of J T Annear & Company taking on construction. The railway between Maryborough and Gympie was opened throughout on 6 August 1881. A daily service was provided between Maryborough and Gympie, taking some four hours between Maryborough and Gympie.
Other railway lines would transform Maryborough into an important railway centre. In 1891 the link between Brisbane and Gympie was finally completed. The Maryborough railway district eventually served an area that extended to Gympie, Nanango, Tarong, Kingaroy, Proston, Windera, and Gayndah, Mundubbera and Monto. Maryborough supported its own locomotive and carriage workshops, and maintained its own separate ‘railway identity’ in many ways. Passenger trains would be shunted into and out of the station at different times of the day, or night, and its Refreshment Rooms were some of the busiest on the North Coast Line. The stations at Piabla and Urangan were to become popular destinations for the annual railway picnics, and other seaside specials organised by the Railways.
A Maryborough engineman’s story…
John Bertram joined the Queensland Railways in 1956, when he was twenty-four years of age. When John started work at Maryborough, he did his fires test learning to “light up an engine that sort of thing”, in his first week on the job. For his firing exam he wrote thirty-six foolscap pages of writing. John passed with flying colours, (although with some help from the examiner). John recalled firing for some almost legendary enginemen who worked from the Maryborough.
“All great men, all helpful, everybody tried to help you… I did a lot of jobs in Maryborough, labouring whatever. I even spent time six weeks as coalman at the coal stage labourer. I can remember one old driver Percy Hickey. You go to Gayndah with Percy Hickey- maybe others have mentioned this, he never put the headlight on. You never knew if you were going uphill, or down! You’d be flying along in the middle of the night, and old Percy would have the light out! He was a great bloke. You’d get up to there (Gayndah), and he’d make you a stew. Wonderful man. Maryborough was the sort of depot where you did everything, once you’d turned eighteen. If you weren’t on call, or on fires they’d have you out labouring, sawing up firewood, offsiding boilermakers.”
John Bertram