Community & Business
23 June, 2024
Pacer hits the tracks
Saturday marked an auspicious day as the Commissioner Railmotor’s Pittsworth Pacer made its inaugural journey into town.
Passengers lined the platform at the DownsSteam station, ready to travel in luxury and style on the grand Commissioner’s Railmotor.
“It really went well and people enjoyed it,” DownsSteam chair, and former Pittsworth mayor, Ros Scotney said.
Mrs Scotney has been an active member of DownsSteam Tourist and Railway Museum for many years, estimating she has served 18 years as chair of the organisation.
The Pacer did two trips to Pittsworth on Saturday.
The first left the station at 11am, and Mrs Scotney said a highlight of the trip was viewing the countryside from a different viewpoint.
“You don’t see a lot of that countryside when you drive on the road,” she said.
The second trip departed the station at 2pm.
A number of train spotters were eagerly following the Pittsworth Pacer’s journey, with a crowd at every rail crossing, cameras in hand.
Mrs Scotney said Queensland Rail had intended to scrap the train.
DownsSteam managed to acquire it, but it was in very poor condition.
It took volunteers two years to restore it.
Tom Redwood, a devoted retired engineer for council, worked tirelessly on the project.
He died earlier in the year, but his wife Trish and daughter Simone were a part of the Pittsworth Pacer’s first trip from Drayton.
He has been remembered with a plaque onboard the railmotor for all of his efforts and time spent dedicated to refurbishing the locomotive.
The project’s patron, and long-time volunteer, Robert Ketton, said there were plenty of choices for the first Commissioner’s trip, but Mrs Scotney convinced everyone that Pittsworth was the right destination.
“We were deciding what should be the destination of our first Commissioner trip, there were so many suggestions,” he said.
“Spring Bluff is pretty, Clifton has a nice station, and a nearby pub,” Mr Ketton said.
“It will come as no surprise when it came to the president’s casting vote, the result was Pittsworth.
“I didn’t realise Pitts-worth, is in fact the centre of the universe, but Ros soon educated me,” he jested.
The train journeyed from Drayton to Wyreema, veering off toward Southbrook and then through Broxburn.
In years gone by, the Commissioner of Railways would travel in his railmotor across Queensland from Dalby to Mt. Isa, hosting board meetings with people from each of the towns.
Inside the railmotor, the Queensland maple boardroom table still sits, as it did, all those years ago.
It is Mrs Scotney’s vision, that Toowoomba’s corporate community will use the boardroom carriage of the Pittsworth Pacer to host meetings around the very same table the Commissioner used, to do the same.
UPCOMING TRIPS
Today marks the debut of the Brookstead Bullet - full day experience that includes lunch at the Brookstead Hotel.
Travelling in luxury isn’t cheap, with Executive Class tickets worth $158.18 and Commissioner Class tickets worth $189.82.
Brookstead is well known on the Darling Downs for its prosperous farming operations and rich soils, and will be a scenic experience for travellers.
Toowoomba’s heritage steam train, the Wyreema Wanderer is also making another trip on July 7.
The journey to Wyreema is about 90 minutes, and would be a fun pastime for kids during the school holidays.
HISTORY OF THE PITTSWORTH RAILWAY
It was a little after noon on Monday, 9 September, 1887, when a train of nine coaches was greeted by close to 900 spectators at the entrance to the Pittsworth Station.
The train broke a blue ribbon, and exploded 17 detonators, marking the arrival of the railway to Pittsworth.
This was more than 40 years after the settlement, known then as Beauaraba (now Pittsworth), developed in this part of the country, home to fertile soil covered in eucalyptus, box, and ironbark.
In the 1860s, families and immigrants seeking to own their own parcel of land were able to purchase freehold
80 acre blocks selling from 25 cents to $2 an acre.
Dairying and pig production flourished, and lush crops of wheat, barley, and maize were harvested.
With an increase in settlers, public servants and businessmen, a school was established in 1881, and a post office in 1882.
Horse drawn vehicles and bullock teams were the only link with the outside world.
Goods were transported by these means over black soil roads to Toowoomba or Cambooya.
Often, the journey would take three days.
It soon became a necessity for the provision of a rail facility in Pittsworth.
In September 1885, a petition was presented to State Parliament to build the 26 kilometre Pittsworth railway. It was approved a month later.
John Garget was the successful tenderer and estimated a completion date of September 27, 1887, with a contract price of $71,530.00
Incredibly, Mr Garget finished the line six weeks ahead of schedule.
Toowoomba railway historian Ernie Hills, who piloted trains along the Toowoomba-Millmerran line for 35 years, wrote:
“The terrain was not difficult, there being only two grades of one foot rise in 50 yards on Umbiram and Broxburn Banks, and two bridges, the longest one being 85 metres.
“The contractor soon had 320 men and 1178 horses and bullocks on the job.
“The Chief Engineer’s estimate was $6442 a mile but the actual cost was $6340.”
At the grand opening of the railway in 1887, Premier Sir Samuel Griffith hosted afternoon tea in a marquee in the grounds of the Beauaraba Hotel.
The advent of the railway did much for the development of Pittsworth.
Mr Hills recorded that the passenger traffic to Pittsworth between 1890 and 1912 rose by over 31 per cent:
“On July 13, 1899 a special train conveyed 1300 sheep to Brisbane and the next day 1900 were railed. Much of the milk processed came by train.
“Thousands of tonnes of grain and farm produce were consigned by train annually until the development of road transport curtailed it.”
Railmotors came to the Pittsworth line in 1928.
For 41 years they ran between Millmerran and Toowoomba.
Children would catch the line to schools in Wyreema and Toowoomba, or workers would ride the line to Nestle’s milk factory at Wyreema.
In 1997, John Peel brought a steam train to Pittsworth, in celebration of the 110 years of the opening of the Pittsworth railway.
The Sentinel’s coverage of the event said it recaptured the excitement of another September day in 1887 when a small village stepped over the threshold into the new age of train travel.
Today, passenger services have returned to the rails with the help of DownsSteam, and Pittsworth is fortunate to now be part of the tourist transport trail across the Darling Downs.
NOTE: Metric measurements and decimal currency used in this report is the result of conversions made in a 1997 article in The Sentinel.
