BTR Garden Railway
Updated 11/2/08
Geof Coleman's Barron Tableland Railway
The Grand Opening of Stage 1 took place on Sat 4/11/06, in drizzling rain in keeping with the lines supposed tropical setting.
Stage 1 consists of a line around the yard with 3 loops at Tabletop and 2 loops at Finch Haven.
The layout is track powered. The line is raised above ground level for most of its length, and surrounded by the rain forest garden. Tableland is on a substantial trestle, reminiscent of real Queensland bridges.
The second stage was opened on 8 Dec 2007, providing a longer continuous run or two reversing loops. The line is virtually complete as per the plan below. It provides a beautiful setting with lush vegetation and trains disappearing into the growth and reappearing elsewhere.
You can read the story of the line by clicking here
The train is completing the first circuit at Tableland. . . . The bridge at Brumby Gully lifts out to allow garden access
Geof's Red Fred Queensland railmotor. (visiting Lilyvale on the Sandstone and Termite) and a lattice bridge made from a bread crate.
Geof has completed a Queensland D16 tank loco based on a Bachmann Big Hauler. It is radio controlled.
A nice timber trestle and a steel girder bridge made from bread crate sides.
Geof's Queensland B12 1/2 loco, made from a Bachmann 2-6-0. It has Radio control and sound
Plan of line on left, and the point-to-point arrangement on right.
Future stages will allow three continuous overlapped circuits.
There will be two reverse loops to allow train reversing from either direction.
It can also be run as a point to point line. The concept for this layout is a blend of
three real railways; The Innisfail Tramway, Cairns Mulgrave Tramway and the
Kuranda Scenic Railway. Geof likes to scratch build wagons and structures and kitbashes locomotives.
He has several locos, numerous scratchbuilt wagons, and some unique bridges and
structures ready to go.
Description of the line.
Whenever new locomotives or rail wagons arrive at the wharf they are unloaded off ships onto the oddly named Grasshopper Siding, the derivation of that name was known to only a few local founders of the railway and is lost in time. Trains leave the coastal town from Shenanigan's Wharf heading inland over the coastal plain and crossing back and forth over Goanna Creek before commencing the accent of the foothills. The first noteworthy bridge, is a Heritage Listed one-of-a-kind eight bay truss built on site by local bridge carpenters. It is a fine example of simplicity, well-selected timber and skilled timber construction. This structure spans Brumby Gully, so named when wild horses were found watering there some days after they broke out of a poorly built split log fenced paddock near the town wharf. They had been mustered and driven to the wharf, destined for loading on a ship for use by the state military detachment. All attempts to re-catch these Brumby's failed and they were never seen again. From that bridge, the line then curves over a timber trestle and next passes Lizard Rock, which simply resembles a Lizard's head when viewed from the train by imaginative people and children when approaching from the East.
Travelling through heavily wooded flat country we come to Finch Haven that reflects the large numbers of Finches that populate this grassland at the start of the foothills. The line stars to climb around Hammock Hill named for a hammock where a local youth used to lay and read alone. Trains proceed on what is nowadays known as the Hammock Bypass, a tight radius curve forms a 240 degree horseshoe bend that replaced the initial more circuitous alignment. This bend is known as Hellsgate, the flanges of railway wheels and the brake blocks squeal so annoyingly that the ladies on the trains say it is like entering the gates of Hell. Before long we are at the next station that is located just at the start of the steep accent on the mountain range ahead, it bears the onerous name Purgatory Scrub. The crews of descending trains dreaded this last steep grade before braking to a halt at this station that serves a village of that name. Here the residents are mostly railway fettler's families and this is where all the raw materials for repairs and maintenance are held in the railway yard and depot. While it may seem at first glance a sleepy and boring little place, it is quiet and the abundance of rainforest bird life here is truly amazing, to just stop and listen is a wonderful, unforgettable experience that brightens this area.
Now the trains begin the hard slog up the steep and winding alignment, the terrain becomes more heavily timbered here.
Soon we are in tropical rainforest with the incessant sounds of tropical insects that only add to close atmosphere of wet tropic heat and humidity.
A brief respite in the gradient and close rainforest heat is a clearing and cool area called Frog Hollow though on occasions their noise can be deafening. Here we cross yet another Heritage Listed truss bridge over Goanna Creek. On the other bank of the creek our next stop is Jumbuk Junction, here the line once diverged to travel up a valley following a tributary creek to a sheep farming region part way up the escarpment. The rails remain in place here, as they have been found beneficial to train crews when heavy trains need to be divided to enable two sections of a train to travel up the Range to Tabletop.
The line veers to the right through more beautiful tropical forest that is in fact more like a garden than mere hillside forest. The line straightens out before crossing Goanna Creek again over the now famous Lapstone bridge that was built using the local stone that was hand hewn from the cutting from the approaches on the other side of this gully. Having crossed the bridge the line turns sharply to the left through heavy rainforest, this locality is called Devil's Pinch where the line is set against a cutting on one side and the deep ravine on the other side. The railway gangs who built the line called it Devil's Pinch for a different reason due to the long thorns that cover the lush tropical palms in this area and which they often became caught up within. The line continues to climb and heading more westerly now we go around Possum Bend the last curve on our journey on the approaches to the town of Tabletop.
While this is the end of the line, it is just the beginning of some popular tourist attractions. Here disembarking passengers descend the mid platform stairs to enter the unusual sub-terrainian station offices and refreshment rooms. Hand cut tunnels take passengers either, out into the town streets, out onto the rainforest walks and the Treetops Boardwalk or directly into the world famous Crystal Caverns that criss-cross beneath the town. The underground stream slows down within these hot caverns, where natural hot pools are enjoyed by young and old for their therapeutic, mineral rich indulgences. In the town, there are specialty shops, markets, a museum, an insect hot house, and pleasant walks to the lookout. There one can look back down to the coast and occasionally through the heat haze you can make out Shenanigan's Wharf on the distant horizon.
This breathtaking view reminds us all of the natural barrier this terrain imposes and the effort exerted to achieve this awe-inspiring railway.
The Story of the Barron Tableland Railway
The town of Tabletop was founded in the early 1860's and centred on a natural pass in the Range. Local features include, the underground limestone caves, hot pools and plentiful fresh water streams that traverse the lush and fertile grasslands and forests that cover this plateau. Farm produce, forest products, a developing cattle industry all made the region prosperous. Over the years packhorse tracks had established numerous routes up the Great Dividing Range from the coast to the Tableland. The discovery of mineral wealth on the Tableland in 1868 saw a massive influx of people and equipment and ever-increasing needs for travel and movement both up and down the mountains for people and goods. Then the subsequent need to get the ore down to a coastal wharf raised the prospect of building a unique railway connecting to an enhanced wharf loading facility on the coast near the mouth of Goanna Creek.
The town at Shenanigan's Wharf was established in the 1870's, as a transhipment port for goods to and from the hinterland settlements that sprang up on the Tableland some 50 kilometres inland and about 800m above sea level.
The route selected was the optimum in alignment, gradient and distance travelled, and yet it presented the surveyors and builders with an enormous task. One design feature that seems unusual these days it that the surveyors and the quantity surveyors determined that they would avoid any tunnels and prefer to balance the volumes of cut and fill to keep construction costs down.
In what was surely one of the great engineering feats of the 19th century, a team of some 600 men worked under extraordinary conditions to further open up the Tableland for trade by connecting the coast to the rich hinterland region via this renowned railway. The Barron Tableland Railway was officially opened in October 1875, a mere 5 years from inception through surveying to construction to operation.
For the construction gangs, the rainforest conditions brought unbearable heat, mosquitoes, disease, and energy sapping humidity as well as dense undergrowth to be cleared. The steep terrain meant difficult excavations and embankment filling to balance cut and fill operations was a quantity surveyors nightmare. The numerous bridges cuttings and embankments bear testament to the ingenuity and skills of the men who toiled in such difficult conditions.
The tenacity of the people who came to work on this railway is note worthy. Periodic damage from Cyclones, landslide or poor construction materials, meant work had to be done several times over.
Not all the local timbers were well suited to initial bridge construction and deterioration set in almost immediately. Such incidents saw repairs hastily undertaken from time to time. This is an ever-present situation, even today.
At various points along the line little camps sprang up, small tent shops and accommodation were temporarily set up for the duration of the construction of that local section of the line that was presently under construction. Such hamlets came and went in a matter of months as people packed up and moved up the line to the next area of activity. Still visible today all along the railway are the remnants of such small villages and the foot tracks that linked them.
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