Last man standing.
Not that many years ago, to improve train operations and loading of cattle at Quilpie they built, what is called in railway parlance a balloon loop around the stockyards. That way, the train just follows the line around in a circle until it's facing the way it came. Simple stuff, often used at big coal mines today. No shunting, safer and faster. But it seems in the middle of the balloon loop at Quilpie they also had a siding and on that, they left this lone cattle wagon, perhaps, maybe because it had a defect. There is another down near the end of the line close to my last shot today. And these two KL (bogie, cattle, long) wagons will remain, now the line is dead until they rot or get cut up. No use spending money rescuing them, the type is no longer used anyway. So that part of history, QR's "Cattle Train" brand is dead as the Queensland Government contracts out all subsidised cattle trains to new comer, Watco, now!
Last man standing.
Not that many years ago, to improve train operations and loading of cattle at Quilpie they built, what is called in railway parlance a balloon loop around the stockyards. That way, the train just follows the line around in a circle until it's facing the way it came. Simple stuff, often used at big coal mines today. No shunting, safer and faster. But it seems in the middle of the balloon loop at Quilpie they also had a siding and on that, they left this lone cattle wagon, perhaps, maybe because it had a defect. There is another down near the end of the line close to my last shot today. And these two KL (bogie, cattle, long) wagons will remain, now the line is dead until they rot or get cut up. No use spending money rescuing them, the type is no longer used anyway. So that part of history, QR's "Cattle Train" brand is dead as the Queensland Government contracts out all subsidised cattle trains to new comer, Watco, now!