The Innisfail Tramway Soft cover edition – Online Special

The Innisfail Tramway

The History and Development of the Geraldton Shire Tramway and the Mourilyan Harbour Tramway

By John Armstrong & G. H. Verhoeven

ISBN 0 909340 38 2 (hard cover)

Innisfail is 80 km south of Cairns, and the largest community between there and Townsville. It is an extremely scenic area situated in the lush coastal belt of tropical North Queensland in one of the wettest parts of Australia. The 2 ft gauge Innisfail Tramway played a major role in the colourful history of the town.

Built one hundred years ago by the Geraldton Shire Council, it was subsequently taken over and operated by the Queensland Railways until they sold it to local sugar mills in 1977. The tramway carried thousands of passengers including shoppers to and from town, wharf labourers to work, racegoers to and from the course, and picnickers on pleasure trips. It carried vast quantities of bananas, timber, coal, agriculture, meat and parcels.

There were 13 steam locomotives, 13 passenger cars, four vans, and about 250 goods vehicles. Over the years the role of the tramway changed, and today the surviving parts of it are operated exclusively as privately owned sugar carrying lines. The authors have interviewed local residents and former members of the tramway staff as well as searched through official documents and newspaper reports, to produce a book which is both historically accurate, and brings to life a vanished era.

The Innisfail Tramway was first published by the Australian Railway Historical Society Queensland Division in 1973.

This new edition published by the LRRSA is completely revised, updated, and produced in the style of LRRSA books. It contains much additional material in text, photographs, maps and diagrams.

Hard cover, 128 pages, A4 size, 99 photographs (12 in colour), 8 maps and 14 rolling stock diagrams, with dust jacket.