Kuranda Range Railway - National Engineering Landmark #34 Kuranda, Queensland, Australia
By Team MavEtJu on 10-Oct-15. Waypoint GA7550

Kuranda Range Railway - National Engineering Landmark #34

The Cairns-Kuranda railway was built during a significant period of rapid discovery and exploitation of Australia's mineral wealth. Government owned railways were seen as the main mode of transport for passengers and freight. Development in the 1880's boom was so rapid that some projects were what we now refer to as fast tracked with construction approved and commencing before adequate engineering investigations were performed. Construction of this line required a largely manual workforce of about 1500, which was recruited from Ireland and Italy. Many of the workers elected to remain in Australia afterwards.

The survey was commenced by Robert Ballard MICE. The remainder of the survey, the design of works and the majority of the supervision was controlled by Willoughby Hannam MICE, Chief Engineer of the Northern Division of Queensland Government Railways. The work was completed under T H Annett, after Hannam's death. Hannam's son engineered many Queensland branch lines, and his grandson Henry was Project Engineer for the major Mareeba-Dimbulah Irrigation Project.

The contractor was the nationally famed John Robb (1834-1896) of Melbourne who arrived in Australia about 1854 and as Overend & Robb or by himself performed large civil and railway works in Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia, before his work on the Cairns-Kuranda line. Robb invested in NSW sugar mills and pastoral properties, Victorian banks and real estate, and South Australian real estate. The depression of the early 1890s and his losses in Cairns bankrupted him.

The construction was a technical feat of its time due to its benching in old slide planes of decomposed rock, much of it at the natural angle of repose reaching to the bed of the river hundreds of metres below. The degree of weathering of the underlying metamorphic rock, together with deep movement of such material for many centuries, involved uphill batter slopes of height to 175 metres. No doubt much of the finished work contributed to the future high maintenance costs from lack of knowledge of modern soil/rock mechanics.

The curved steel lattice bridge at the head of the short Stoney Creek valley passes across the almost sheer face of Stoney Creek falls is certainly unique on Queensland Railways. It has always been recognised, as being of great aesthetic appeal. With the falls as a background the bridge has provided a spectacle for millions of private and publicity photographs.

Contents of the plaque: KURANDA RANGE RAILWAY

Queensland Government Railways Chief Engineers, Willoughby Hannam and Thomas Anneett designed and supervised this railway. John Robb, the contractor, and his European migrant workforce built the line, bridges and tunnels between 1886 and 1891. The railway climbs 323 m in 21.7 km through the rainforest of the World Heritage Wet Tropics, across the very steep, loose sides of Barron Corge an over some extraordinary curved iron truss bridges. It was built to develop the large mineral and agricultural area of Far North Queensland. During World War 2 it also serviced huge military camps and hospitals.

THE INSTITUTION OF ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA, QUEENSLAND RAILWAYS, 2005.

When logging this virtual, please add a photo of yourself or your GPSr at the plaque.

For more information, please see the nomination PDF at the Heritage Register at the Engineers Australia website: Nomination