Global Steam
Steam in Australia: South Australia & Queensland
Steam in Australia: South Australia & Queensland
The “South Australia and Queensland” offers spectacular film of railroading during the steam era in the states of South Australia and Queensland.
South Australia has the most eclectic mix of rail gauges on the continent including broad, standard and narrow gauge. All gauges are shown! Small rural passenger trains tie together a nation of vast, dry emptiness (similar to the American West three generations ago) chugging through the desert and tall prairie grasses.
The 400 Class Garratts remain as some of the last steam in Australia hauling silver, lead and zinc from the massive Broken Hill mines to Port Pirie. In Queensland coal fired Garratts haul bucket coal cars. Small brightly painted engines ferry fresh cut sugar cane to the mills near Bundaberg in the remarkable 1900 mile two-foot gauge empire.
This is real Australian steam just exactly as it was – so real and so well done that we think your throat will tighten just a little when you see it.
Filmed by Ken Macleay
43 minutes