May 31, Ipswich, Rosewood, Toowoomba

We drove west of Brisbane to Ipswich. It's the home of the Workshops Rail Museum, a new museum in an old compound. Steam trains, carriages, freight cars were all made and maintained here since the 1860s. Now it houses a museum with interactive displays, a model train, and tells the story of the railroad in Queensland and Australia.

In the early days, Queensland opted to use narrow gauge because it was cheaper to build, even though it couldn't carry the weight of wider gauge tracks. They still have narrow gauge tracks. The train that runs from Brisbane north is a tilting train. The engine and cars tilt in the curves and that allows the train to move faster.

One of the big Diesel engines had a simulator where we tried to move the train down the track, stop at a station and move on. It involved 2 brakes, a throttle and some other controller. Pretty difficult. Another difficult display was a freight box that held boxes. There was only one way to pack it so that all the boxes fit with nothing sticking out.

A large part of the compound was a workshop that refurbishes and maintains the heritage trains of Queensland. One was the train that we rode from Kuranda, but there are several others.

In Rosewood, a small village, we stopped at St Brigid Catholic Church, the oldest wooden church in the South Pacific. In order to get in, we had to give the women in the office our keys in exchange for the key to the church. There was a beautiful mural painted on the wall behind the altar. There were also stained glass windows and all the saints depicted in them were women.
The Rosewood RR Station was built in 1918 out of prefabricated concrete that looked like wood.

To get to Toowoomba we had to go up the Great Dividing Range. There was roadwork on the highway and it was a long steep climb with very slow trucks on the road. At least there were 2 lanes, the way down was only 1 and traffic was backed up into Toowoomba.

We bought a few groceries and went to the showgrounds for the night. It's cold up here and the electricity for heat will be welcome.

Pictures - Model RR cane train, Model RR wheat station, Samson putting the boxes into the freight container, St Brigid, Interior, Jeanne and Rosewood RR Station, 100 year old Rising Sun Hotel in Rosewood