Travel Australia

Bundaberg to Mount Perry Railway Line

Mt Perry Station

Copper was discovered in the Mount Perry area in the second half of the nineteenth century. Mining activities led to agitation for a link between the mines of the Mount Perry region and a port. In 1872 proposals of a private railway line were considered, and both Maryborough and Bundaberg vied to secure the line. These plans were never executed however. Rather, it was decided a state-owned line would be constructed. Thornloe Smith, Engineer in charge of Railway Surveys, conducted a survey from North Bundaberg to Mount Perry in 1875. Thornloe's survey noted the country was rugged, and eventual surveying plans called for a tunnel to pierce part of the Boolboonda Range.


Bundaberg Station, 1882

The Bundaberg Railway, as it was called, was constructed in two sections. The first section, North Bundaberg to Moolboolaman, was constructed by Overend and Company and opened on 19 July 1881, although timber specials had run for some months previously. The second section, including the tunnel works, was approved in November 1880.


Mount Perry showing the Queensland Copper Company smelters, 1907

The first 65 kilometre section from North Bundaberg railway station (originally called Bundaberg station) to Moolboolaman opened on 19 July 1881.[1] The stops were at Oakwood, Sharon, Manoo, Bingera, Birthamba, Koolboo, Goondoon, Hilo, Bullyard, Tagon, Maroondan, Uping, McIlwraith, Gin Gin, Tookie, Watawa, Tirroan, Guragila and Daylsford. Construction of the first stage predated the completion of the North Coast line from Maryborough to Bundaberg by some seven years and it was only then that Bundaberg station was renamed North Bundaberg.


Railway carriages derailed at Gillen Siding on the Mount Perry branch line, 1924

There followed extensions to Gillen’s Siding opened on 15 August 1882, then via Goyan and Ellimatta to Boolboonda opened on 12 November 1883, and lastly via Wonbah, Wolca and Drummer’s Creek to Mount Perry opened on 20 May 1884. A feature of the last stage of the line was construction of the Boolboonda Tunnel. Excavated a distance of 192 metres through solid rock, the tunnel is the longest unsupported tunnel in the southern hemisphere. Completion of the final stage meant that a service leaving Mount Perry at 7.30am took 4 ½ hours to reach Bundaberg before departing at 3.00 pm for the return journey.


Boolboonda Tunnel

At the completion of the line the Mount Perry copper mines closed due to the financial failure of the mines. The copper mines reopened around the turn of the century and with the construction of a smelter, operated until the period of the First World War. The unlined tunnel and the Splitters Creek trestle bridge at Sharon were the two major engineering works undertaken on the Mount Perry line. For the next 50 years the main traffic generated on the Mount Perry line was mainly from dairying, livestock and timber traffic, with sugar traffic from Gin Gin east to the Gibson and Howes mill.

Two trains a week operated after the Moolboolaman opening but a rapid rise in timber transport necessitated three trains a week in 1883 and daily services in 1884. Sugar cane traffic increased quickly when a mill was opened at Bingera in 1885. Although mining activities dwindled, timber transport took over to some degree until copper mining again became viable in the early 1900s. Until then, the line ran at a loss but high copper prices saw large scale mining return to Mount Perry and provide the railway and town with a new lease of life.


Rail Motor 1901 at Gin Gin Station, 1989

From 1 November 1960 the Mount Perry railway was closed beyond Tirroan, due to declining revenue. The railway beyond Tirroan was dismantled in 1961. After the transfer of sugar cane traffic from the Watawa plantation area in 1964, to the Gin Gin Central Sugar Mill at Wallaville there was little traffic beyond Gin Gin other than stock specials to the cattle loading railhead at Tirroan. The section of line from Tirroan to Mount Perry was closed in 1960 and removed in 1961, due to declining traffic revenues. The Gin Gin to Tirroan section was closed in 1989. The final section of the Bundaberg Railway, beyond the Versatile Toft siding (North Bundaberg to Gin Gin), closed officially to traffic on 25 January 1993, although services had been suspended in 1991. The line was sold for removal, with rail being sold off to local sugar mills for use on their tram networks. Part of the former right-of-way has been adapted for use by the Bingera Mill for its sugar tramway.