150th Anniversary of Queensland Rail Steam Train Trip

Last year when I was travelling on the famous Tilt Train, I learned of a steam train journey to celebrate 150 years of Queensland Rail - and arranged for a group of Volunteers from the Caboolture Historical Village where I "work" one or more days a week as a volunteer, to travel from Caboolture to Gympie on the steam train.

There were two parts to our celebrations yesterday - the group that travelled on the train, dressed appropriately ofcourse on an extrememly hot day. The train was 'manned' by volunteers from the Australian Railway Historical Society. There was much excitement at Caboolture station when we arrived - not for us, as it was a surprise for everyone - but there were many folk, photographers etc waiting for the steam train. The Caboolture Rail folk were impressed!!

There were photos at the front of the train, and then we went to find seats. We were told we had to go to carriage C but there were no seats there, in fact few seats anywhere, and as the train pulled out, we were still standing on the area outside of the carriage - but in a good spot to see the re-enactment at the Caboolture Historical Village. We had advised Queensland Rail, asking them to go slow passed the Village, but just at that time a train from the other direction passed at the "wrong" time for the celebrations, but we did manage to get some photos of the cannons etc.

Eventually, after walking the length of the train, we found seats, mostly, though some of us chose to stand between carriages and wave to the many folk along the tracks - so many with tripods and cameras, but others just standing to wave. There were a couple of stops, briefly, and we arrived at Gympie North station 20 minutes early.

There were many photos taken - of us, and by us. There was a re enactment at Gympie, but it was so hot (around 38 degrees), so in the end we hopped into the bus and headed back home.