Queensland Government Railways, Days Gone By.

Queensland Rail has a fascinating history. A lot has changed sin...ce the opening on the 31st of July 1865 and today we see Electric Trains, Tilt Trains, Inter model Freight Trains and distributed power Diesel and Electric coal Trains..

People see items of rolling stock being scrapped and say it should have been preserved. If Q-Rail were to save every type of rolling stock, it would need a massive museum to hold it all. Staff/Volunteers at Ipswich Rail Workshops and various private heritage groups are doing their very best to keep as much of the preserved heritage rolling stock operating as they can and we are lucky to still have operating steam locomotives like A-10 No.6 from 1865.

The group is like a Facebook museum with thousands of photos of Q-Rail rollingstock, stations, closed lines and other infrastructure and heritage items that have been long scrapped and many files for research, including rollingstock details, which are updated and new files added. The aim is to bring back the memories of days gone by and show the younger generation what things were like. Enjoy reading posts by current and past railway workers and reading about old railway characters.

This group covers anything to do with the ""one Q-Rail"" that no longer runs as a service and is no longer seen on today’s system before 2010. Preference is anything pre-corporatization but this is just a preference as there is still a lot of rich history out there since then.

Examples of suitable topics include:
• Any steam or early diesel locomotives, railmotor/Trailers etc.
• Long distance passenger trains; Queenslander, Sunlander, Sunshine Express,Mails. etc.
• 3900 class electrics hauling Goods and passenger trains.
• Any discontinued goods services like the Fruit trains.
• 2170 class in their final days on sugar trains and 2470 and 1720 class as well as they are now all on borrowed time
• E.M.Us in original grey livery are fine as they are over 35 years old.
• Shire Tramways that helped form or were associated with Q-R in the early days such as Aramac, Beaudesert, and Belmont Tramways.
• QGR owned 2’ gauge Innisfail Tramway (Note: Other 2’ gauge cane railways are not relevant to this group)
• Heritage trains. (Note: Other current services are not relevant to this group.)
• The standard gauge north of the N.S.W border (except for current services)

We want this group to be as friendly as possible but unsatisfactory behaviour such as bullying, mild profanity, sexual smut, politics will not be tolerated. If you have any concerns about topics, please contact one of the admins via the p-m before posting. The ADMINS are Tony Forno (Group Creator) Graham Watkins ( group 2IC ), Ian Pringle, Baden Briggs, Larry Matters, Mike Quirk, Ray Smith, Danny Sheehan, Frank Tybislawski.

Thank you for being a part of this group and we hope you stay with us and keep adding your photos and stories about Q-Rail as we grow and see more of Q-Rail’s history unfold before us.

The Admins.