Queensland Rail

The first air conditioned train placed in service in Australia was the Silver City Comet, a self propelled diesel-rail car set, in New South Wales.  In 1935 at a time when construction was being undertaken of the Spirit of Progress by Victorian Railways, Queensland Railways was pressured into investigating construction of its own air conditioned rollingstock.  As part of the post-war reconstruction and upgrading of Queensland Railways, the decision was taken to build a luxury train for operation between Brisbane and Cairns.  As a result of shortage of staff design work was delayed, and plans for a 13 luxury car train to carry 71 first and 77 second class passengers, was not completed until 1949.  A seperate generator car was to be built to power air conditioning, rather than attaching air conditioning power units to each carriage.  The QR designed luxury train was not to be built as a result of a lack of loan funds, and the Comeng design for the country mail trains was adopted for the train to operate between Brisbane and Cairns.

The 'Lander name had been adopted in 1952, with the western services being commissioned as the Westlander, Midlander and Inlander.  The Brisbane-Cairns service became the Sunlander, replacing the Sunshine Express.  The first air conditioned train introduced however was the Inlander, on the Townsville-Mount Isa line (Great Northern Railway), entering service in February 1953.  The adoption of air conditioning and the introduction in the middle of summer was obviously a great innovation in the heat of North-western Queensland.

The Sunlander commenced operations in June 1953, Midlander in May 1954 and the Westlander in August 1954.  All the Coment built trains were in service by 1956.  The popularity of the new services meant that there were only enough carriages for four Sunlanders, offering five services per week.  Ipswich Workshops constructed new carriages in May 1961 to complete a sixth train.

In the January 1888 timetable the daily train west from Brisbane to Roma was officially called the Western Mail.  The train was terminated at Roma at 10.00pm but on Saturdays extended its run through to Morven arriving at 3.45am Sunday.  The return service began at 9.30am with passengers oversighting at Roma.  With the opening of the line from Morven to Charleville on 1 March 1888 the daily mixed train was extended to run to the new terminus.  Passenger services to Quilpie and Cunnamulla beyond Charleville were withdrawn in 1994.

During the steam era two specially allocated steam engines would work the Westlander from Roma through to Charleville.  The sight of two highly polished locomotives heading the air conditioned train through the cold westerly wind or the heat of a western summer was for ten years a part of the scenery on the line between Roma and Charleville.

Following the completion of the North Coast Line in 1924, the first reference to the Sunshine Route appeared in the Northern Division timetables of 1929.

The Sunshine Express made its debut on the Queensland Railways on Monday 27 May 1935.  The consist for the new train was of wooden bodied coaching stock, on steel underframes.  The first train was made up of three AAS first class and three FBS second class cars, a first class sitter, second class sitter and parlour car.

The overall consist loading for the new train was limited to thirteen vehicles (not including the Dining Cars which were attached between Rockhampton and Mackay).  Initially six services per week were provided to Townsville, with three continuing through to Cairns.  Northwards of Townsville a railmotor provided a connecting service.  As the Sunshine Express was conceived a tourist train, services were reduced during the summer months to four per week.  At peak periods extra divisions of the train were run.

To complement the train two Kitchen Cars were built, and these were attached to the train on the section between Mackay and Rockhampton.  One of these vehicles still survives in operation and is a regular member of the QR Heritage tour train (DC/G 1255).

An order for 20 new cars was placed with Commonwealth engineering in early 1980.  Ten were sitting cars, five first and five economy class, each including a shower.  The final series of ten cars were built as roomette sleeping cars with each of the 14 cabins containing its own self contained toilet.  In the mid 1980's five new dining cars were built for long distance services as well.  This was part of the major overhaul of the Traveltrain fleet, to upgrade the standard of travel on long distance trains.

The first rail on the Normanton-Croydon line was laid in 1888, and to defeat the termites of the Gulf, specially patented steel sleepers were used.  Today nearly 120 years on, the same rail and steel sleepers still carry the train on its journey.  By July 1891 the rails had reached Croydon.

The expense and difficulties of maintaining a steam service, combined with the closure of the Croydon goldfields, saw the Queensland Railways investigate cost saving measures.  In 1922 the first internal combustion engined railmotor arrived in Normanton, and today this significant machine survives as part of the QR Historical collection.  The least steam train ran in 1929 on its 160 kilometre journey, and since 1930 the service has been exclusively run using railmotors.  Over the years some five railmotors have worked the service, the most modern of these is the present incarnation of the Gulflander.  The name of the Gulflander evolved in the late 1960's, as a tongue in cheek reference to the 'other' 'Lander trains of the rest of Queensland.  The name was officially adopted in the 1980's by QR.  The present Gulflander service is run by Railmotor No.93, a Gardner diesel engined railmotor built at Ipswich Railway Workshops in 1950.  It arrived in Normanton in 1982, and today with its trailing passenger car continues to provide the venerable service on Queensland's unique Gulf railway.

The Tourist service was not a formal part of the public timetable of the Queensland Railways until the 1960's.  Through the 1920's until the 1930's the tourist train was comprised of the unique carriage stock of the Cairns Railway.  Until only twenty or so years ago, carriages on the Cairns Railway were well known because of their 'vintage appearance', and items such as open end verandahs, sun shades over the windows, and short wheelbases on the carriages were part of their unique charm.  In the 1930's Queensland Railways introduced its unique Grandstand Train.

The popularity of the train was well received, judging by the numbers carried in the tourist seasons from Cairns.  The innovative service was cancelled with the outbreak of the Second World War, when Cairns became part of the war zone in the South Pacific.  Travel north beyond Aloomba could only be by special permit.  The carriages were convered into Hospital carriages for service during the Second World War.  At the end of the war, the carriages were converted back into passenger vehicles, but not as the popular Grandstand Train.  Two of these carriages now form part of the QR Heritage excursion fleet and 533 still travels the Cairns-Kuranda line on the Kuranda Scenic Railway.

After the Second World War, the tourist industry recovered to its pre war levels.  The attraction of the area was also promoted by the tens of thousands of service personnel who had been based in Cairns and far northern Queensland during the war, and returned to the area for holidays.  The tourism industry continued a slow but steady growth into the 1960's.  The popularity of the train journey was demonstrated with 100% increase in passenger numbers between 1965 and 1975.  Increasing numbers of passengers and limited carriage numbers, with an aging fleet, required that a new direction would need to be considered.  In 1980 planning began on giving the Kuranda Tourist Train its own special identity.