The Etheridge railway line is a heritage-listed railway line between Mount Surprise and Forsayth, both in the Shire of Etheridge, Queensland, Australia. It includes Mount Surprise railway station, Einasleigh railway station, Wirra Wirra railway station and Forsayth railway station. Etheridge railway line was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 16 February 2009.
History The Etheridge railway line, which branches off the Mareeba-to-Chillagoe railway at Almaden and heads south for to Forsayth via Mount Surprise and Einasleigh, was built between 1907 and 1910 by the Chillagoe Railway and Mining Company as a private railway line. The same company constructed the railway line from Mareeba to Chillagoe and Mungana between 1898 and 1901. The Etheridge line was built cheaply, with lighter rails and fewer earthworks than the Chillagoe line, to supply ore to the Chillagoe Company's under-utilised Chillagoe smelters. The Chillagoe Company was part of the business empire of John Moffat, and between 1880 and 1914 much of the economic activity of North Queensland was driven by the railways and mining towns created by Moffat's enterprises. The remaining built infrastructure at stations along the Etheridge Railway provides examples of the type of buildings erected by the Chillagoe Company for its railway network.
John Moffat arrived in Brisbane from Scotland in 1862, and in 1872 he opened a general store in Stanthorpe with Robert Love, to take advantage of tin mining in the area. By 1880 Moffat decided to expand his tin-buying business to North Queensland, and that year his prospectors marked out a mineral freehold at the head of the Wild River, near Herberton. Battery machinery was erected in 1881 at "The Great Northern" mine, and the Herberton Tin Company was formed. In 1884 the Loudoun battery was established at Gibbs Creek and Irvinebank (named after Moffat's birthplace) became Moffat's permanent headquarters. A tin smelter was also erected at Irvinebank in 1884, next to Moffat's residence Loudoun House. The Loudoun mill held a pivotal position in the North Queensland economy when Irvinebank was booming in 1899, and at its peak was the largest tin battery and smelter in Australia.
As well as mining and smelting tin, Moffat was also interested in silver and copper. He opened a silver smelter at Montalbion in 1886, and silver deposits were located at Muldiva in late 1889. In 1888 Moffat sent his prospectors to William Atherton's property at Chillagoe to look for copper, and Moffat soon monopolised the new field. The first copper smelter on the Chillagoe field was erected near the Boomerang mine at Calcifer in 1894, and by 1897 there was also a copper smelter at Girofla (Mungana). However, Moffat had plans for a central ore smelter which would replace the Loudoun smelter and the small primitive mills located near individual mine groups.
To supply a central smelter, Moffat needed a network of railways to his mines. He had commissioned the survey of a railway route to Chillagoe in 1892, hoping for a land-grant railway, but the depression had stifled the proposal. The Queensland Government's railway from Cairns reached Mareeba in the early 1890s and Moffat hoped to build a railway inland from this point. However, he needed capital for such a venture, and in 1897 he went to Melbourne to find investors, where he gained the attention of Charles William Chapman and James Smith Reid. In 1897 the Chillagoe Proprietary Company was formed. Reid and Chapman accompanied Moffat to Brisbane in November 1897 to present their railway proposal to the government. The resultant Mareeba to Chillagoe Railway Act of 1897 empowered the Chillagoe Proprietary Company to build a railway for , subject only to a government right of purchase after 50 years. In 1898 a new company, Chillagoe Railway and Mines Limited, was formed to take over the assets of the Chillagoe Proprietary Company.
The 1897 Act also approved a central smelter site at Barron Falls, but a short-lived Labor Government quashed the project in December 1899. The Chillagoe Railway and Mines Company was forced to develop its central smelter inland, accruing high transport costs. A central smelter site was selected at Chillagoe Creek, and smelters were constructed during 1900 and 1901. From 1902 the smelters extracted gold, silver and copper from ore which was supplied from Redcap and Calcifer, and they also treated lead ore from the Girofla mine and Torpy's Crooked Creek silver lead mine. In 1901 a copper smelter was also built at Mount Garnet, where copper had been discovered in 1882, but this was not linked to the Company's rail network (at Lappa) until 1902.
Construction of a gauge railway with steel rails was supervised by Archibald Smith Frew, the Chillagoe Company's Engineer-in-Charge, who had worked as an assistant to George Phillips on the Normanton to Croydon railway line, built between 1888 and 1891. Construction of the Chillagoe line began in August 1898, and it opened to Lappa on 1 October 1900 and to Chillagoe and Mungana in 1901. Labourers were hired on piece-work, and substantial work was sub-contracted. Stone and concrete culverts and drains were inserted in all embankments over high, and steel and masonry bridges were constructed.
In an attempt to obtain more copper ore for the Chillagoe smelters, since ore reserves around Chillagoe had been overestimated, the Chillagoe Company sought to build a branch line from the Chillagoe Railway, south to the Etheridge goldfield and the Einasleigh copper mine. There had been a proposal by John Robb for a private railway to Georgetown in 1890 and in 1902 the Einasleigh Freehold Mining Company proposed a tramway from Almaden to Einasleigh, but nothing eventuated. Negotiations between the Chillagoe Company and the Queensland Government occurred from 1904, and approval was finally given to build the railway subject to the provisions of the Etheridge Railway Act 1906. The Chillagoe Company agreed to build a railway to a point near Georgetown, for a cost not exceeding . The government would operate and maintain this private line for 15 years, guaranteeing the company a profit of 2.5% on its outlay, and then purchase the line. It was the first step towards the present system under which mineral railways are government owned and operated but built with private capital repaid out of profits.
The railway construction project was again overseen by Archibald Smith Frew, and began in 1907, branching off south from Almaden. The station at Almaden (not included within the heritage boundary of the Etheridge line) was opened in 1901. It became a busy centre for trucking cattle and servicing locomotives.
The Etheridge Railway was constructed in the most economical way possible using timber for the bridges, with sharp curves, steep grades and light ( pound per yard) rails. There were fewer earthworks than on the Mareeba to Chillagoe line, and minimal ballast was used under the sleepers. Despite controversy, the Chillagoe Company changed the line terminus from Georgetown to Charleston (Forsayth) because it was thought that the mines near Charleston were more promising than those near Georgetown.
By 31 August 1907, the railhead was at . The line was opened to Mount Surprise in May 1908, and the railway station at Mount Surprise from Almaden) was named in December 1909. In 1916, Mount Surprise station had a gate, siding, telephone, scales, fork, cattle yards, and a horse and carriage loading bank. By 1932 it had a station building, closet, goods shed, loading bank, motor shed, camping quarters, two fettler's quarters, enginemen's quarters, coal stage, and cattle yards. Mount Surprise became an important cattle trucking centre after 1951, with the reconditioning of the line from Almaden for steam locomotives. In 1970 approval was given to erect the railway station building from Tumoulin at Mount Surprise as a cottage (removed 2008). A repair shed for the Savannahlander tourist railmotor and an interpretation centre were built in the mid-1990s.
Although construction was delayed by strikes in mid-1908 over the pay rate for railway workers, in February 1909 the line was opened to Einasleigh from Almaden. The Einasleigh copper mine was originally discovered by Richard Daintree in the mid 1860s, but the cost of transporting ore from the site made it uneconomic and it soon closed. The location was lost until the 1890s and a renewed interest in copper on the Etheridge field. A township known as Copperfield was established on the banks of the Copperfield River to service 12 copper mining leases extant by 1899, and this was surveyed as Einasleigh in 1900. The mine was reopened that year by the Einasleigh Freehold Mining Company, in which John Moffat had acquired an interest. By 1901 copper matte from a smelter at Einasleigh was being transported to Almaden by camel train. The coming of the Etheridge Railway in 1909 allowed Einasleigh to boom, and it was the largest centre on the Etheridge between 1907 and 1910. By 1910 six ore trains a week were running from Einasleigh to the Chillagoe smelters, and in 1911 the mine was purchased by the Chillagoe Company. It closed in 1914, and was reopened by the Queensland Government between 1920 and 1922.
By 1916 Einasleigh station consisted of a station building, siding, telephone, scales, fork, cattle yards, and a horse and cart loading bank. By 1935 it also had a goods shed (not extant). As both Einasleigh and Forsayth were expected to provide substantial amounts of copper ore, the importance of the towns' railway terminals meant that station master's houses, designed by Frew, were built at both towns. A branch line to the Einasleigh copper mine forked off to the north of the station, and today the remaining section off this line leads to cattle yards.
By July 1909 a train was running from Almaden to Reedy Springs (Wirra Wirra), and by the end of August 1909 cuttings and embankments had been made to within of Charleston, with stone culverts and drains complete to from Charleston. More earthworks were required on the Newcastle Range and Delaney Gorge sections than elsewhere on the line. Ore trains were running to Chillagoe from a terminus just short of Charleston by January 1910, and the terminus at from Almaden was renamed "Forsayth" in December 1910. The regular mixed train ran from Forsayth to Almaden three times a week, returning the next day, although there was only one train a week during World War I. By 1916 Forsayth railway station had a station building, siding, phone, scales, turning fork, cattle yards, and horse and cart loading bank. By 1935 it also had a gate and a goods shed. The cattle yards were rebuilt in 1970, but no cattle have been handled from the station since January 1993. The framed tent quarters date from about 1914, with 1930s additions.
The working and maintenance of the Etheridge railway was taken over by the government from 5 February 1911. From the beginning, cattle were transported from the various stations and sidings along the line, but this traffic increased in importance with the decline of mining. Apart from the main stations on the line there were a number of sidings, the majority situated between Almaden and Mount Surprise. Little survives at these sidings today, other than siding tracks, concrete slabs, some signals and points' equipment, loading banks and cattle yard remnants.