tramline

USC60_0013
Berthelsen snigged for McKenzie's, who started milling about 1921. They ran for a year bu which time they had erected one fourth unit of their mill and were sawing 40 logs per day. They closed down for three months and reopened for another year with only one or two mills working. Their plant was sold by auction, but the Forestry Department ran the steam tramline for years, the rails being finally sold for removal about 1935-35.

USC184_0001
S.J. Yes, well
my uncle drove the loco at, for, Wilson, Hart & Hyne, and his son worked on the loco for some time then he bought bullock temas, and he pulled timber at Woolgoolbver to a tramline too. He had 2 teams.
John You said your brother worked on the locomotive for McKenzies when xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (when the McKenzies' mill started up).
S.J. Yes, not when they first started, but after a while he did. He sold his bullock team and he went over to McKenzies and drove the loco there for a while.
John And did you tell me a bit about the locomotives that they used to operate? The early trams that they had?
S.J. Well, like, what do you mean that way?
John Well, you said that they had two types...
S.J. Oh, well McKenzies had one like just the ordinary steam loco, and then they had one that run on a cog and wheel, and it used to go just slowly. The track out to .... the tramline at McKenzies was all up hill, a steam loco was flat out pulling two empty trucks to bring timber in, and it was flat out pulling two ships tanks on a tabletop truck. I'll tell you more about that later, what happened one day. But coming home. I used to go over to McKenzies some time to come up to town. Coming home, all you done, was sat on this tabletop little trolley and a bloke had to have a stick down in between onto the wheels for a brake, and by Christ, she'd go down. Ohhhhh, wouldn't she!!
John There is still a mark on Fraser Island. I think they call it "the 7-20" the 7 mile 20 chains of the tramline that was downhill all the way down to the Wharf.

---
John And you had one loco, mainly just pulling downhill and one pulling uphill. Is that the old one with the rack and pin.
J.S. Aw, they just went out with the loco. That's all he'd done. Went out to the dumps, loaded the timber, and come into the creek with it. Thats at Woolgoolvber, Of course, at the mill, they took it to the mill straight away.
John Now you tell me what they had, they used to water their locomotives at Woolgoolvber?
J.S. Along Woolgoolvber, up in Woolg.. about four mile out, it would be. The tank and the pump. Four mile or so. It might be five. It might be four-and-a-half.
John It wasn't far from the top of the creek...
J.S. No, it just went down the railway line about, oh, I suppose, about 50 feet or so, it might be. What I can remember like. But real clear water. A nice creek there.

---
John So that they had, the Woongoolvber tramline and the McKenzies tramline operating at the same time.
J.S. The same time, yes.
John Were they were both 2 foot wide or was one ....
J.S. Aw, the ordinary gauge, like you know...or not 2 ft. Three foot gauge.
John Three foot?
J.S. Aw, yes.
John All three foot gauge?
J.S. Yes, it was like as it was at the railway lines here. Both of them were.

USC184_0003
John: So, most of the area that you became fairly familiar with, is the area between the Louisa Camp and the beach?
S.J.: On, no. We went down when the tramline finished, we went down to Gowrie's Camp. There was a lake at Gowries Camp. Is that still there?

USC295_0005
My uncle drove the locomotive for Wilson Harts and Hynes and his son worked on the loco for some time, then he bought bullock teams and he pulled timber at Woongoolvber to a tramline too.

USC295_0007
Living conditions, judged by present standards were pretty primitive. It has to be remembered that there were no means of transport or traction other than horses (saddle). Pack saddles were used [??] transferring supplies from boat and or tramline settlements. Timber barges would come at [K??] Tide so as to get up the creeks. It was lucky to [??] two trips each moon. Most times we only had [o??]. Often the boat came months apart. Of course forestry bought its own launch.

---
The only sawn timber in the first buildings wa[??]
floor which came down by barge and was ca[??]
from the tramline to the camp in waggonette. [??]
tramline was laid from the mouth of Bogim[??]
Creek inland to the scrub and timber areas.

USC295_0008
bullocks hauled the timber to the tramline and it was transported to the mouth of the creek and rolled on skids (placed so as to hold many logs, and on a pitch to make it easy to roll logs to where the winches on the barge could be attached). Then the logs would be lifted by crane, and lowered to the hold on the barges and punts.

USC295_0009
In 1915 we moved from Deepuying (which is the aboriginal name for the White Cheeked Honey- eater) to Orange Tree Camp. It was from here that the tramline had been laid to Eurong Scrub. It had the same type of buildings as Deepuying but a house was built by early '16. We got more horses - some draughts. Dad bought a buggy and the transport problem had improved considerably.

The Eurong Road as we know it now, where the tourist traffic comes across from Eurong Beach to Central and down to the coast, the inside coast, was a bullock team road. It was made by the bullockies when they cut the timber in the Eurong Scrub. Even before the tramline went in there, that road was formed. The tramline was mooted and put in before we left Bogimbah, so that it would be an operative concern timberwise before we went down there. We built the home and the first forest station on Woongoolbver where the navvies or the builders of the railway camped at first. That was the first big camp there. They cleared a patch and camped. That was why there were so many fleas there.

The site where we lived was the first camp of the gang building tramlines. The Orange Tree at the site
was planted by the tramline gang some time earlier.

---
The tramline went as far as Central Station to begin with, through the Eurong scrub. I just forget how
far through, but not out to what is now called Louisa's Camp. We called it Dellon's Scrub [wit??] the tallow woods then. That is, I think, as far as the train line ever went, and that reached there in 1917.

USC295_0010
On coming to the crossing of tramline just east of the present central Station, a track of Carrol Scrub, there were some Satinays which had been felled.

---
[photograph]

STEAM TRAIN OPERATING ON THE WOONGOOLBVER CREEK RAILWAY LINE about 1916. This railway terminated near the Orange Tree Camp at the Mouth of Woongoolbver Creek and reached into Central Station or "The Scrub Camp" during the Petries time on Fraser Island

USC295_0012
[Photograph]
LOADING TIMBER in Woongoolbver Creek 1934 into the "Archos". The log ramp and loading ramp are well
downstream of Orange Tree Camp. It was here that the tramline which operated on Fraser Island from 1915 - 1923 terminated and it was from this point that Skipper Armitage loaded most of the timber punted from Fraser Island during that period. The logging dump is still used today.

USC295_0019
Herb Heisler had a team snigging and carting to tramline, McKenzies and Tallowood.