Travel Australia

Mount Morgan railway station, Qld

Mount Morgan railway station is a heritage-listed railway station at Railway Parade, Mount Morgan, Rockhampton Region, Queensland, Australia. It is on the Mount Morgan - Wowan railway line. The station was constructed in 1898 to service the former goldrush and gold mining township of Mount Morgan and its mine. The station was designed by Henrik Hansen, who also designed the Archer Park, Shorncliffe and South Brisbane railway stations.



The station operated as a functional railway station from 1898 until 1987, after which it was restored as a Railway Heritage Museum. The museum includes artefacts from the rail and mining history of Mount Morgan, including a restored Hunslett steam engine, "Silver Bullet" rail motor and timber rail carriages. Trolley ride days operate on Tuesdays and special occasions. The station was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 October 1992.

The Mount Morgan - Rockhampton Railway Line

The Mount Morgan gold mine had been developed in 1883 and by 1889 with a mining population of 5,836 people, Mount Morgan's fortunes had attained their first peak. From 1903 copper was extracted and in 1929 a new company, Mount Morgan Limited, established an open cut to extract the copper ore.

The line linking Mount Morgan with Rockhampton, via Kabra on the Central Western railway line, was opened on 26 November 1898. The line was subsequently extended to Wowan on 16 October 1912. From the opening, a service of three trains daily was provided. which were maintained at Mount Morgan from 1898 to 1952 when a lower gradient deviation was opened.



Due to the steep inclines in the Razorback Ranges, the line included a section of rack railway between Moonmera and the Mount Morgan township. It was built at half the cost of a conventional railway, at a time when the longevity of the ore deposit was unknown, but added significantly to operating costs and time delays on the journey. Special-purpose steam locomotives had to attach to the train for ascent and descent of the rack section. Although only approximately 2.4 kilometres long, the rack section speed of approximately 10 kilometres per hour .

The time for the rack loco to attach and detach added 40 minutes or more to the journey compared to a conventional line, and the maximum load was limited to 130 long tons. To prevent runaways if wagon couplings broke, the engine was typically coupled at the lower side of the train, when ascending and descending the incline. The steepest grade was 1 in 16.5 (~6%), double the steepest grade on a conventional line and three times steeper than the usual maximum grade. The rack locomotives were maintained at Mount Morgan from 1898 until 1952, when a deviation bypassing the rack railway was opened.

The rack section used the Abt rack railway system, which was developed in Switzerland and was one of three such lines in Australia. The remaining two are the West Coast Wilderness Railway, a former mining line located in Tasmania, rebuilt as a tourist attraction, and the Skitube Alpine Railway serving the Blue Cow ski resort in New South Wales.

An appropriate station building for an important provincial town was designed by Henrik Hansen, who was responsible for similar stations at Cunnamulla, Winton, Archer Park and Emerald in the same period. The first stage of the station building constructed in 1898.



The locomotive water supply at Mount Morgan failed in 1901. The following year, when water supplies failed completely, the mine and town were kept going by trains hauling water from Stanwell. Twelve trains per day unloaded into the bed of the Dee River from the nearby railway bridge (since made into a road bridge). In 1917–18, the station yard was enlarged. The engine shed moved to a new site to allow more room, and a turning triangle or forkline as installed to replace the turntable. In 1919–20, an elevated coal stage was erected.

A parcels office and station master's office was added at the north end of the station building in 1912. Refreshment rooms followed in 1921, initially opened or taken over as part of the State-enterprises policy. The rooms were closed and re-sited as barrack quarters in 1968. By 1940, the complex consisted of station building, refreshment rooms, dock road, 20,000 imperial gallons (91,000 l; 24,000 US gal) tank, engine shed, oil store, examiners shed, 40 long tons (41 t) double rail weighbridge, goods shed, office and 10 long tons crane with warehouse crane, station masters house, fireman's house, quarters, forkline, small coal stage and trucking yards.

The rack railway was closed in April 1952, after the Razorback Range deviation was opened, with grades of 1 in 50 (2%), able to handle 750 long tons trains, allowing the haulage of Callide coal through Mount Morgan with conventional steam locomotives. The deviation was constructed because the rack locomotives had reached the end of their working lives, but also because the bottleneck that the rack section created meant the development of export coal mines at Callide and Moura would not have been possible. A concrete retaining wall from the rack line remains at the top of the Razorback Ranges on the entry to Mount Morgan. A short section of the rack centre rail has been retained in Morgan Street, Mount Morgan, opposite the town museum. After the rack railway was removed, the Mount Morgan to Rockhampton line operated as a fully adhesion-based railway.

In 1955, a separate room for shunters was provided and the guard's room moved. In 1959, the 10 long tons (10 t) crane (spare) was moved to Innisfail. A 75 long tons double rail weighbridge was provided in 1964.

During the 1960s, coal-fired steam engines were gradually replaced by diesel-electric locomotives which were maintained at the Rockhampton railway workshops. Previously, the steam engines had been repaired and maintained at the Mount Morgan locomotive depot. The first diesel-electric locomotive to work through to Mount Morgan arrived on 26 May 1964, and steam locomotive operations via Mount Morgan ceased in October 1967. In 1971, the coal stage was dismantled. With activities at Mount Morgan mine declining to a point where there was little traffic, the retention of the Mount Morgan railway depot became uneconomical and in May 1984, the facility was downgraded to two employees.

On 1 August 1987, the railway from Kabra through Mount Morgan to Wowan closed, following the construction of a direct line from the Moura and Callide mines to the coal loading terminal at Gladstone, allowing trains to handle haul 5,000 metric tons loads. The old line was dismantled in 1989, but the Mount Morgan station building and yard, and a short section of track, were retained for tourism purposes. The Mount Morgan Shire Council was given tenancy in 1988.