RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ABT RAILWAY
(Now West Coast
Wilderness Railway)
BY GREG WHITTINGTON
As
a kid in Queenstown back in the 60's and early 70's a lot of your
time was spent around the town making your own fun, such as riding
bikes up and down Gormy Hill, (The road out of town to Hobart), playing
all day on the sand hill and exploring in and around the railway yards
which were where the ABT Wilderness Railway has now being rebuilt.
The Railway Station platform started from opposite the Empire Hotel and extended up along Driffield St towards where the Miners Siding Display now stands. One of the main highlights was to be there when the trains were leaving and arriving usually with a loco on either end. Usually when leaving for Strahan with a full train of copper from Mt Lyell, the train made an impressive sight as smoke and steam billowed from each loco, along with the constant blowing of the whistle etc. Some of the activities we use to get up to with the trains were to race the train on our bikes as far as we could, and nick any "Coke" (Coal), that we could find lying around. The railway line had pits built under the line at crossings where the line crossed a road, and one stunt we used to get up to was to lie in the pit just before the train came and watch the train and carriages go over the top of you. Mind you, if we had ever got caught doing this we probably would have been in big trouble. We had to be pretty sneaky in the way we went about it so as not to get caught. The crossing that we would always use was there the Fountain is now near the Senior Citizens Club. Other stunts we would do was the practice of putting coins or empty tins on the line just before the train came to see how much they would flatten out after being run over by the train. I remember one day we found some rail caps, (which were usually clipped to the line by the railway workers to warn the train driver off work being carried out to the line, and when run over by the train go off like a small explosion and usually results in the train stopping). We attached the caps to the line near where the Fountain now is, but we wasn't game enough to stay around to see what happened but I believe it caused an uproar, so we stayed away for a few days. The biggest highlight for the year was always the Mt Lyell Picnic in Strahan, as this involved travelling in the picnic train down and back. I can still remember the picnic day mornings, as we would all be up early and have to sit around and wait for mum to finish preparing the lunches, getting breakfast and dressing all of the eight kids in our family. Once everything was packed and ready we would all head down to the Station, where it seemed everyone in town had arrived, and by this time some were boarding the train. Our family from memory normally caught the second or third train, and once we were finally loaded on and had our seats sorted out we had to sit and wait till the whole train was loaded. The carriages that were used were normally open with a canvas top and seats fitted just for that day. Once the train got underway we would wave and yell to everyone we saw as we travelled through the town and then look forward to the trip up the section of the line where the train would engage the rack up the steep section of track. This is where we would often hang out of the train and grab wild flowers and ferns off the banks beside the line, and if we could get away from mum and dad, we would often jump out and race the train up the last section to where it would stop and refill with water. Looking back on it now, it must have been quite a sight with all those kids pouring over the side of the train. I still recall looking back down the track at the train as it steamed up the hill towards us under full steam with people leaning out waving and yelling to us, (usually the parents telling us to get back on this b...train). It was then on further down the line where the views over the King River valley were great, (even to a kid), and the quarter mile bridge was always a sight to see from the back of the train with the front part of the train curving to the left as it passed over. Once on the bridge everyone would throw the wild flowers and ferns that we had grabbed before into the river below. As soon as we had reached the Iron Bridge we all started to look forward to reaching Strahan and picnic games and of course, the food. After a full day of playing games such as stepping the yard, three-legged races and gum-boot throwing etc it was time to catch the train to Queenstown. The train would often stop at the fish factory where dad would, along with a lot of the other parents, buy a box of cray, (Crayfish, often referred to as Lobster), legs for us to eat on the way home. There was no time for jumping off the train on the way home as we would all be too busy eating the cray legs and anything else that was left over, after that we would all be too tired anyway. As soon as we arrived back in Queenstown we would all follow mum home and usually straight into the bath to help kill off the sunburn that we would all end up with. After that it was normally straight off to bed. |