The rail network in Queensland, Australia, was the first in the world to adopt narrow gauge for a main line. In 2013, it claimed to be the second largest narrow gauge network in the world. The network consists of the following lines:

the North Coast Line (NCL), extending from Brisbane to Rockhampton, Townsville and Cairns four east–west lines (and associated branch lines), including: the Western line from Brisbane to Toowoomba and Charleville the Central Western line from Rockhampton to Longreach and Winton the Mt Isa line from Townsville to Mount Isa the Tablelands line from Cairns to Forsayth four export coal networks, including: Moura to Gladstone Blackwater to Gladstone Goonyella to Hay Point Newlands to Abbot Point the original narrow-gauge Southern line that provided a rail connection to Sydney, extending from Toowoomba to the New South Wales border at Wallangarra, plus the South Western line west from Warwick to Thallon; two lines extending south of Brisbane, a narrow gauge passenger line from Brisbane to the Gold Coast, and a line to the New South Wales border connecting to the line to Sydney the isolated Normanton to Croydon line, now operated as a tourist service as The Gulflander the isolated private freight line at Weipa hauling bauxite from a mine to the export terminal over 3,000 km of gauge sugar cane lines servicing 19 sugar mills (see Tramways section below).

Passenger services include: Long distance trains from: Brisbane to Cairns Townsville to Mount Isa Brisbane to Longreach Brisbane to Charleville Brisbane to Sydney Translink network providing services: north to Caboolture, Ferny Grove, Gympie North, Kippa-Ring and Nambour east to Cleveland, Domestic Airport, Doomben and Shorncliffe south to Beenleigh and Varsity Lakes west to Ipswich, Rosewood, and Springfield. The Translink network consists of approximately 300 km and 151 stations."Our Services" , Queensland Rail

History Construction

Construction of the Queensland rail network began in 1864 with the first section of the Main Line railway from Ipswich to Grandchester being built. This was the first narrow-gauge main line constructed in the worldKerr, J. 'Triumph of Narrow Gauge', Boolarong Publications 1990 and, in 2013, was claimed to be the second largest narrow-gauge railway network in the world.

Network extent At its maximum extent in 1932, the system totalled ~10,500 km of routes open for traffic.

In 1925, QR employed ~18,000 people, 713 locomotives, 930 passenger carriages, ~16,000 goods wagons, hauled ~five million tons of goods and ~30 million passengers, and made a return on capital of 3.2% before depreciation.

Electrification

Three significant electrification programs have been undertaken in Queensland which include the Brisbane suburban network, the Blackwater and Goonyella coal networks, and the Caboolture to Gladstone section of the North Coast line.

Public float

On 2 June 2009, the Queensland Government announced the 'Renewing Queensland Plan', with Queensland Rail's commercial activities to be separated from the Government's core passenger service responsibilities. The commercial activities were formed into a new company called QR National Limited. The new structure was announced by the Queensland Government on 2 December 2009, and took place from 1 July 2010.

Infrastructure Track gauge

The nascent Queensland Railways was persuaded that the way to reduce the cost of railway construction was to use a narrower gauge than the standard gauge of . A prototype existed in Norway, but Queensland became the first rail operator in the world to adopt narrow gauge for a main line. The proposed gauge railway involved a axle load and very sharp curves of radius on the long climb to Toowoomba at about above sea level. The maximum gradient was 1 in 50 (2%) uncompensated, which combined with a radius curve gives an equivalent grade of 1 in 41 (about 2.5%). Although the proposed railway could only manage a top speed of , that was claimed to be sufficient for a hundred years.

One of the main advantages of a narrow gauge railway is that the earthworks required do not have to be as extensive as on railways of larger gauge. It was estimated that the cost of this standard of railway would be 25% of the cost of a standard gauge line built to the minimum standard considered possible with that gauge at the time. This was a vital consideration since the colony of Queensland had a non-indigenous population of about 30,000 at the time. Standard gauge branch lines were later constructed in NSW with radius curves and had the same low maximum speed.

The choice of the non-standard gauge, approved very narrowly by parliament, was and still is controversial.Kerr, J. 'Triumph of Narrow Gauge' Boolarong Publications 1990 Thus the die was cast for a large narrow-gauge system, which was copied by three other Australian states as well as a number of other countries. Queensland's decision to use narrow gauge was influential on New Zealand's decision to adopt narrow gauge as its uniform gauge in 1870.

A hundred and fifty years later, Queensland is still sparsely populated (5.5 million in 2024), but many trains hauling coal are some of the longest and heaviest in the world, with Aurizon currently trialling coal trains of 25,000 tonne gross load that are ~4.5 km long.

Rack railway QR had one rack railway, with grades as steep as 1 in 16.5 (6%), which was on the branch to Mount Morgan. It was bypassed by a conventional line in 1951 with grades of 1 in 50 (2%). The bypass closed in 1987. The rack system was the Abt rack system, the same type used by the Mount Lyell Railway in Tasmania.

Operators

Historically, the government-owned Queensland Rail has been the main rail operator in Queensland. The exception has been the standard-gauge link from New South Wales into Brisbane. When opened in 1930, it was operationally a part of the New South Wales system and run by that government-owned railway, under agreement with Queensland which owned the line. From 1994, National Rail took over the operation of virtually all standard-gauge freight services to and from Brisbane, as part of a reorganisation of interstate freight in Australia.

In 2002, QR entered the standard-gauge market through subsidiary Interail, by 2004, it was running freight services from Brisbane through to Melbourne. Today, standard-gauge freight services are operated by Pacific National after its acquisition of National Rail, and Aurizon (formerly a Queensland Rail subsidiary, QR National).

On the narrow gauge, Queensland Rail operates all passenger services. In 2005, the first non-QR narrow gauge commercial rail operation started in Queensland, with Pacific National commencing operation of container services between Brisbane and Cairns, followed in 2009 by their entry into the export coal market. Queensland Rail's subsidiary Australian Railroad Group have also entered the Queensland narrow-gauge freight market, operating trains between Townsville and Mount Isa in its own right. Standard-gauge passenger services are provided by the New South Wales Government's NSW TrainLink using its XPT.

Airtrain The Airport railway line opened to passengers in May 2001. Under a BOOT scheme – build, own, operate and transfer – the Queensland Government licensed Airtrain Citylink to build the rail line, to own and operate it, and hand the entire infrastructure over to the Queensland Government after 35 years when the company will then cease to exist. Airtrain Citylink contracted Transfield Services to build, operate and maintain the line and finally Airtrain Citylink contracted Queensland Rail to provide rolling stock for the rail line.

Aurizon In 2010, the Queensland government privatised the narrow gauge freight haulage and all standard gauge components of Queensland National. In 2012, the organisation renamed itself Aurizon.

Pacific National In March 2005, Pacific National Queensland became the first non-Queensland Rail narrow gauge commercial rail operation in Queensland, with the commencement of container services between Brisbane and Cairns. They now operate intermodal services to various destinations along the coast of Queensland. In 2018 they became responsible for sugar haulage in Central and North Queensland.

Watco Australia On 16 August 2019, Watco Australia announced that the first two of eight WRA Class locomotives units were being delivered to Australia. The company have stated that they would begin operations in the fourth quarter of 2019. WRA001 and 002 arrived at the Port of Brisbane on the vessel Tarago on 9 October 2019 and were transferred to Warwick behind QR locomotive 1724.

BHP Mitsubishi Alliance BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) is a 50/50 partnership between the two named companies, operating 9 coal mines in the Bowen Basin. BMA Rail was authorised to operate on the Goonyella coal network from 1 January 2014, and purchased 13 Siemens E40 AG-V1 electric locomotives, designated as the BMACC class, numbered BMACC001-BMACC013. It has the potential to operate its own trains if contract haulage rates from either Aurizon or Pacific National are unacceptable.

Tramways

Except where noted, this section relates to sugar cane lines in Queensland built to narrower than gauge, and in this section the term ‘narrow gauge’ means a gauge less than . Non sugar cane tramways covered by their own entries are: Aramac Tramway Ballara Tramway Beaudesert Shire Tramway Belmont Tramway Buderim Tramway Cooloola Tramway Innisfail Tramway Laheys Tramway Mapleton Tramway Mill Point Settlement Site Stannary Hills Tramways Munro Tramway

Sugar cane tramways were usually developed in conjunction with sugar mills as the major transport system for conveying harvested sugar cane for processing. As this is a seasonal traffic, minimising cost was a significant consideration, and the adoption of gauge enabled lines to be laid with minimal earthworks, sharp curves, and sometimes temporarily in cane fields so cut cane can be loaded directly onto wagons.

History

The first recorded use of a locomotive hauled tramway for sugar cane transport in Queensland was at a plantation at Morayfield (now an outer suburb of Brisbane) in 1866 using gauge. The plantation was not a success, however another tramway built at Maryborough in the same year was successful.

A gauge tramway was established at the Pioneer Mill near Ayr in 1875, and in 1881 a tramway network had been established to service CSR Homebush and Victoria mills. The Herbert mill had an network by 1882, and further tram networks were established as the sugar industry expanded, all gauge with the exception of the Pioneer Mill system.

In 1911 the Queensland Railway Department built a tramway from Chinchilla to Wongongera (now Barakula) to transport railway sleepers made from logs taken from the state forest at Barakula and milled at the Barakula sawmill (approx ). The route of the Barakula tramway was based on an earlier plan to construct a railway line from Chinchilla to Taroom that was subsequently abandoned in favour of a railway line from Miles to Taroom. The tramway operated until 1970.

At the end of World War I surplus equipment that had been used to rail supplies to the trenches was used to expand the sugar cane networks.

Originally cane was harvested by hand, and the ‘standard’ 4 wheel wagon was loaded by stacking the ~2 m lengths of cane between upright stakes.

In the 1950s mechanical harvesting was introduced, and cane ‘bins’ were required to hold the ~200 mm lengths (‘billets’) of cane produced by that harvesting process. Most cane bins are 4 wheel with a 4–6 tonne capacity, but some mills utilise bogie bins with a capacity of ~10 tonnes.