West Coast Wilderness Railway_img 0229
The Railway is the restoration of a line first built to transport copper from the Mount Lyell mine in Queenstown to Tasmania’s west coast. The first stage of track was opened in 1897 and the full route from Queenstown to Strahan was completed two years later. The line stayed in operation until 1963 when increasing maintenance costs led the company to switch to a fleet of trucks.
Eventually funding was found to restore the line as a tourist attraction and by the end of 2002 the Railway was again in operation between Queenstown and Strahan with three of the original Mount Lyell locomotives being restored to service. In April 2013 mounting costs again saw the line closed but early in 2014 the section to Lynchford was reopened and as of March the line was operating as far as Dubbil Barril with hopes of restoring service to Strahan by year’s end.
For more photographs, and for information about the breathtaking challenges and innovative technology involved in building the Railway, see my images 0230, 0231 and 0232.
© Irwin Reynolds, all rights reserved. If you are interested in using one of my images or would like a high quality fine art print, please send an email to irwinreynolds@me.com..
West Coast Wilderness Railway_img 0229
The Railway is the restoration of a line first built to transport copper from the Mount Lyell mine in Queenstown to Tasmania’s west coast. The first stage of track was opened in 1897 and the full route from Queenstown to Strahan was completed two years later. The line stayed in operation until 1963 when increasing maintenance costs led the company to switch to a fleet of trucks.
Eventually funding was found to restore the line as a tourist attraction and by the end of 2002 the Railway was again in operation between Queenstown and Strahan with three of the original Mount Lyell locomotives being restored to service. In April 2013 mounting costs again saw the line closed but early in 2014 the section to Lynchford was reopened and as of March the line was operating as far as Dubbil Barril with hopes of restoring service to Strahan by year’s end.
For more photographs, and for information about the breathtaking challenges and innovative technology involved in building the Railway, see my images 0230, 0231 and 0232.
© Irwin Reynolds, all rights reserved. If you are interested in using one of my images or would like a high quality fine art print, please send an email to irwinreynolds@me.com..