The Savannahlander

Boy scouts have a motto of ‘Be Prepared’, which is also quite appropriate for Savannahlander Drivers. You never know what is going to appear around the next bend, or on the next bridge. So when the boys came upon old man Wallaroo having a rest in the middle of the bridge,  a course of action had to be rapidly put into place, because while the ‘roo was stuck on the bridge, so was the railmotor. Running it over was out of the question – the passengers were watching. And a Wallaroo is like a wallaby on steroids, they are solid muscley creatures and there would have been a very real possibility of the railmotor being tipped off the bridge. No, he just had to be moved.

The poor old bugger was in reality, probably on his last legs, and was looking for somewhere to have a (long) rest. Still, he was between the railmotor and its destination of Forsayth (which has a pub), so he had to be moved. In the photos, you can see Matt trying a variety of strategies, including cursing, gesturing and trying to appear threatening. Even gentle nudge with the railmotor, while blowing the horn failed to dislodge him. Eventually, a large branch was procured, and he was levered off the bridge.  What was not captured on film was the happy moment when the Wallaroo was levered clear of the track, which was also the time he became sufficiently irritated to rear up and have a go at Matt. That’s the thanks you get!

Photos in the gallery below were taken by Geoff Morris, a passenger in the train that day. He kindly sent these over after his return to England.  If I have left anything out, Matt or Rob will correct this in the comments, when they return to civilisation.

Tags: Bridge Obstruction, Wallaroo

After nearly  a six weeks absence, the Savannahlander railmotor units were finally allowed home to their  depot in North Cairns on Saturday 1 May.  Since the landslide, there has been no traffic on the range apart from infrastructure work trains until 29 April, when a series of trial trains did a few runs to validate controls to the re-opening risk assessment. The Savannahlander had the honour of being the first revenue service to proceed down the range beyond Barron Falls.

During the closure, it was necessary to transfer passengers between Kuranda and Cairns by coach. It has  also caused the cancellation of our first charter for the year, because we could not move our charter unit out of Cairns to be placed at Mt Surprise in time for the trip. Re-opening of the line section came at a good time, as we had our biggest loading so far this year on board. For these lucky passengers, it was a bit of a bonus, because we really didn’t expect the track to be available for another week, so they were expecting another transfer from Kuranda by coach.

In the gallery, are a series of photos taken of the Savannahlander’s arrival and departure from Kuranda Station.  Stabled on the loop line is a KSR Shuttle train. The shuttles will operate for as much as the next couple of weeks between Kuranda and Barron falls, while they complete a safety process that will allow them to recommence full operations. Note that the images are moderately large, so you might need to scroll the page to read the captions on the bottom of each image.

Tags: Kuranda Range, Savannahlander

Or… So much for Promising Signs!

On Friday 26 March, the second Kuranda Tourist Train of the day rounded a sharp curve on the range, just before No 1 tunnel, and found the tracks obstructed by a recent landslide. With very little time to react, let alone stop, the lead locomotive struck the spill and derailed. The train was propelled back down the range by the second loco to Redlynch, where light engines were attached to the rear and brought back to Cairns. There were a couple of minor injuries and five passengers were transferred to hospital during the recovery phase – they were release by later that evening.

While this was happening, the boys were fighting their way out of the Delaney Gorge on our beloved Savannahander – there will be a separate post about this soon. So while the Savannahlander is remote from its servicing depot, it is on the other side of the landslide and able to do the run from Kuranda. So while we are waiting for the line to reopen, we will arrange for bus transfers to and from Cairns at each end of the trip. Continue reading “Another Landslide – Another Challenge”

Tags: Kuranda Range, Landslide, Savannahlander

Word from the Infrastructure people is that kind weather, and less than expected damage means that the Savannahlander should get right through to Forsayth next week (Trip Departing 17 March). Fingers crossed than any rain that comes through from now on, is only moderate, and only enough to keep the country green and the rivers flowing.

Tags: Forsayth, Savannahlander, Track

As most of our regular readers know the line the Savannahlander travels on between Almaden and Forsayth has been closed due to flood damage. This meant that we could only operate between Cairns and Almaden for the last few weeks. Well – we have some good news. The line will be open the whole way to Forsayth from the week after Easter. This means that normal services will resume on the 15th of April. We look forward to seeing you all on board!

Late Update:

We were contacted by the track manager who told us that repairs to a washout has settled and requires additional rectification work. This is on the other side of Mt Surprise, and at the time of this edit, it was unsure if the work would be completed before the train is due to run over that section.  We’ll keep you posted.

Late Late Update:

We have just been advised that the track is open all the way to Forsayth.

Tags: floods, Info, Savannahlander

Well not quite, but at least there is (wait for it) light at the end of the tunnel <groan>! I refer of course to resumption of full Savannahlander services. The QR Infrastructure people tell us that April 15 is the likely date for full resumption of services.

Late seasonal starts have become an unfortunate recurring theme for us, with track washouts and range landslides contributing to late starts over the past couple of years. While this is annoying for the passengers who have booked trips with us (and I really feel for the international visitors here) we must remember the people who rely on the Savannahlander for their livings. These are the tourist operators and the accommodation, and service  providers who support our day to day operations out in the Gulf Areas. The train and its passenger provide a financial benefit to those people and ultimately the communities they live in.

Until resumption of full services, the Savannahlander will be doing a weekly Wednesday departure from Cairns to Almaden, and return to Cairns on the following day.

This picture for this post was taken by our Driver Rob,  in ‘Fairyland’ which is just outside Kuranda on the line to Mareeba.

Tags: Almaden, Savannahlander

In the previous post, I said that we would bring you images once they come to hand. Below is a small sample of the sort of things that will be facing the workers tasked with restoring our track. Hopefully,  these images will help some of you understand why we will be ringing or emailing you with bad news about your holiday, if you have booked in the first couple of months of this year.

Amongst the images below, you will see a picture of the Copperfield river bridge, which featured in the last post. Now that it has emerged, you can see the effects of the strain from weeks submerged under the water with the big kick in the middle.

Of course, the real concern is that the wet season is not over yet.

Tags: Savannahlander, Washouts

In a similar vein to the commencement of seasonal operations over the past couple of years, the 2009 season is also going to be a ‘wash-out’. It’s very difficult to describe to people that don’t live in the tropics,  the sort of damage a ‘proper’ wet season can do to a fragile railway like that which the Savannahlander runs on.  The main thing is that the bridges have remained intact over the season, albeit some need to have some alignment corrections done, but these are potentially the items that can cause long term disruptions to the service.  The problems are washouts, all 119 of them, which are going to prevent us from getting through to Forsayth at the beginning of the season.

A washout is where the ballast or  track bed that supports the rails and sleepers is carried away in floodwater, leaving the tracks hanging over some some deep holes. Combined with the damage to ‘our’ line, there is also bad flood damage done to the Great Northern Railway, between Townsville and Mt Isa, which due to resource demand, will affect the time in which the Savannahlander track can be repaired.

A time for completion of repair works is a week by week proposition at the moment, and anyone with early season bookings should check here or on the Savannahlander Website for updates. We will be receiving a weekly progress report from the gangs out at work on the line.

The most affected month will be March, and it is likely that we won’t get past Almaden until the end of that month. This is particualarly disappointing because we have received an uncommonly high amout of bookings for that period this year. Passengers with bookings are welcome to cancel their trips outright and with a full refund, or we will arrange an alternative Savannahlander trip over a shorter distance – depending on how much track is available.

So you get an idea of the amount of water running through the district, below are a couple of pictures of the Copperfield river, one of the rail bridge, and the other being the road causeway that is next to the bridge. Compare this with views in normal times.

Tags: floods, Obstructions, Savannahlander

Those of you who have had the Sav on your must do list for a while can rest easy now. The Savannahlander is officially not a “must do” trip. The RACQ (with help from some other sponsors) is suggesting a list of 150 “must dos” in Queensland. Interestingly, there are many rail experiences included on the “must dos” including the Gulflander, Sunlander and Spirit of the Outback. We were a little surprised to find that the Savannahlander wasn’t included amongst these “must do” rail journeys. Then it was noticed that the other major sponsor of the promotion is the operator of a number of passenger rail services in Queensland. We now wonder if the addition of these services to the “must do” list was a “must do” for the RACQ to get dollars from a sponsor. What a sham shame!

You can see the entire “must do” list here.

Or suggest  something they missed here.

Tags: The Savannahlander

This post comes to us from one of our drivers who had more that a little reason to be annoyed this week:

This week was the first week of the Delaney Gorge closure, and is the first of many where the Savannahlander will be terminating short of Forsayth. We rang train control from Almaden on Thursday morning and were told that the track gang had a stop board at the 213.500 km mark on the Wirra Wirra – Forsayth section. We were given authority to the 213.450 km which is a good spot for us. It allows us to unload passengers at the nice flat clearing at the top of Turkey Flat and they then have a short bus ride down the sealed road to Forsayth. It also allows us to stow the railmotors so they are not visible from the road. The bus was organised, we had authority to Turkey flat – we were on track (pun intended) for a smooth bustitution at Turkey Flat…

We got to the top of the Newcastle range and came across a 15km/hr speed restriction at the same place as last week. Last week it was long, excruitatingly long. The project gang have replaced the sleepers but not secured them to the rail so the track is only being held together by every second sleeper. Now we don’t mind a speed restriction for safety reasons but going at 15 km/hr for a long time can really become tedious. It turns out the speed restriction is now 18 km long! That’s well over an hour going at 15km/hr! We finally came to the end of the speed restriction and arrived at Turkey Flat.

We came across a stop board at 213km. To our dismay (and anger) some one had decided to extend their work site by 500 metres without telling us or (more importantly) train control. This meant that instead of unloading our passengers at a nice flat area with easy access to the bus and little in the way of obstructions on the ground for our walking stick toting customers, we had this:

We got our passengers away and then set back a couple of kilometres to stow the railmotors. After a number of conversations with various levels of officialdom, it became apparent that no-one was willing to accept responsibility. All we know for sure is that it was embarrassing for us and certainly not our customers fault! Stay tuned for further updates.

Tags: Savannahlander