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Australia's Oldest Operating Steam Locomotive
Made from an award winning film by Brian Witte, this videotape features Queensland's only remaining operational A10 class locomotive, built in 1865 by Neilson and Company of Glasgow. Restored by volunteer members of the Australian Railway Historical Society, this diminutive 126 year old loco is first seen running on one of several trips between Brisbane and Ipswich, mostly taken from another train running parallel, hauled by steam PB15 class steam locomotive No 732 built in 1926.
The little locomotive is next seen on a well wagon, being taken, along with a spare PB15 and the last surviving C17, 2000 kilometres north to Cairns to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the construction of the spectacular Cairns-Kuranda Railway. At Cairns, Brian has has captured the regular tourist train, steam engines A10 and a PB15 double heading a special train up the Barron Gorge to Kuranda, followed by the A10 alone on an ARHS excursion up the grade to Kuranda.
In 1991 there were seven steam locos operating in North Queensland, including 2 ft gauge Fowler and Hudswell Clark locos, and these are seen at the Balleyhooley Railway at Mossman and the Mulgrave Rambler at Gordonvale. A 2ft gauge diesel passenger service is also seen. At Ravenshoe, the Railco preserved steam railway is observed operating restored D17 tank loco, converted to a tender type engine, to Queensland's highest station, Toumoulin. As part of the festival "100 Days to Celebrate 100 Years" of rail action on the Kuranda line, the A10 is next seen on a trip further west from Kuranda, along the very scenic Barron Gorge.
The line to Ravenshoe is now closed, but to conclude the tape, we jump back ten years to ride the Ravenshoe Rail motor to the end of the track, passing the now inaccessible Carrington falls, and the kilometre-long Herberton Tunnel, noting nostalgically, Toumoulin and Ravenshoe when they were accessible by regular train.
To obtain the best possible transfer to video, the original Super 8 films have been transferred on a Rank Cintel "flying spot" scanner, to Betacam broadcast standard tape, edited on one inch and directly duplicated. The improvement over other methods often used is quite noticeable, giving results close to those obtained from 16mm film.