Clydes among the Cane

Clydes among the Cane

Fijio’s sugar railway on Viti Levu

in the twenty-first century

by Ian A Dunn

Published 2010 by Eveleigh Press

64 pages A4 size landscape format, soft cover, 60 full page colour photographs

Australia’s sugar giant, CSR, had a far-flung outpost in the blue Pacific, where it built over 400km of cane tramway and ran several large mills. CSR’s cane railway on Fiji survives today on the islands of Viti Levu and Vanua Levu, under new ownership. It provides a fascinating window onto the Australian cane tramway of the 1960s, set in a tropical paradise.

Motive power is mainly diesel-hydraulic 0-6-0s from Clyde Engineering in Sydney and operating practices mirror those of Queensland four decades ago.

This all-colour album showcases the Clyde diesels amongst the cane fields and forests of Fiji between 2005 and 2009.