Episode description
In this episode, we talk about how 80 years ago, Queensland and the Queensland Railways found themselves thrust into a crucial role during the Defence of Australia.
When Japan entered World War II, Australia was under threat of invasion. Darwin suffered the worst bombing and heavy casualties. Fortunately, the bombs that fell on Townsville and near Mossman brought no loss of life. Until the tide turned in the Battle of the Coral Sea, invasion seemed to Queenslanders in 1942, a very real likelihood.
Our Hosts, Annette and Queensland Rail Historian, Greg Hallam, talk about how the Queensland Railways rose to the occasion and assisted in defending Australia during those dark days of the Second World War.
We also hear from Paul Slater, Manager of Heritage Assets who works on a remarkable survivor of Queensland Railways from the Second World, that is housed in the magnificent Ipswich Workshops.
Listen to the episode
Podcast transcript
Introduction
Annette: Good day, and welcome to episode 7 of the Queensland Rail History podcast. I am Annette, and as always, it is good to have you along again for another episode. In our last podcast we spoke about the Commissioner of the Railways Garden Competition and made mention of the victory gardens that people were encouraged to grow during the Second World War. When Japan entered the war, Australia was under threat of an invasion. Today we'll talk some more about how 80 years ago Queensland Railways found themselves thrust into a crucial role during the defence of Australia. We'll also talk with someone from our team who has worked with a remarkable survivor from the Second World War.
“Well, it was hard to maintain the rolling stock because the workshops didn't have the raw products to do the repairs, because most of the material was going into the war effort. So Queensland Rail just had to patch and scrimp and do whatever they could to keep the rolling stock running."
“Be that as it may, we in common with the whole community, hail with pleasure the inauguration of the railway in Queensland."
“You had to literally look around and say, what have we got available now to be involved in the defence of Australia."
Let's welcome Queensland Rail historian, Greg Hallam, to talk about how Queensland Railways rose to the occasion and assisted in defending Australia during those dark days of the Second World War. Hi, Greg, how are you?
Greg: Hello Annette, good to be here again.
Queensland Railways' contribution to the war effort
Annette: Why was the period of late 1941 and 1942 so important to the story of the defence of Australia? And how did Queensland Rail fit into this picture?
Greg: Annette, few people today are aware of the significant contribution of Queensland Rail, or as we were back then, Queensland Government Railways, to Australia's war effort in the period of 1941 to 1942, and even after that to 1945 at the end of the war. The Railway Department was to pass through what was called a testing time such as never before experienced. Queensland's geographical position in this part of the country, in the north east of Australia, it made it therefore the battlefront state. Preparations to defend Australia took on great urgency, and that was in December of 1941, and that was with the bombing of Pearl Harbour by the Japanese.
Now, the Japanese advance was so rapid and the fall of impregnable Singapore, which was part of the – which was the great bastion of the British Empire in the Far East – it ended the invincibility of the British Empire. This was a great shock for Australia. Troops, aircraft and naval forces were therefore moved to this new war zone. Australia became the closest safe supply base for Allied forces. There were huge amounts of ammunition, fuel and food that had to be supplied to the hundreds of thousands of troops that were going to be stationed here in Australia. And because the coast was a danger zone, many ships had already been pressed into war service, it was most of this task fell therefore to the Queensland Railways.
Were the Queensland Railways prepared for their crucial role in the war effort
Annette: It must have been a very traumatic time. Were the Queensland Railways prepared for the crucial role which we would play in this emergency?
Greg: Queensland Railways were originally built, as we've discussed in the past, to bring the state – much of the state – as close as possible to the advantages of reliable rail transport. Nothing more than really a day or a day and a half away from the nearest rail siding for a farmer or someone like that in country Queensland. But Australia had just been through the Great Depression. Good tonnages at that stage, Annette, they fell 30% from 1926 to 1933; an enormous fall off in traffic. It took five years to recover from the depths of the Great Depression. Now, there was little money to invest in upgrading track. There were few replacements that had been built for the ageing locomotives of that period. There were few new employees that had been brought on, and therefore it was an ageing workforce as well that was already there from the 1930s as we came to the 1940s. So from 1939 to 1941 the focus of the war was in Europe. The workshops here, actually in Australia, in places like – well, here in Ipswich – they turned towards munitions work. And the Queensland Railways, when the war came to our doorstep, it was a huge task that was going to confront us all. There was no time to put down heavy rail track and bridges. There was no time to duplicate single tracker or install modern signalling. All that could be done quickly was to put in more crossing loops and therefore, Annette, run more trains.
Annette: Okay, so we've come through the Great Depression. We have a rundown of our rolling stock. We have ageing employees. How did we get back up in time?
Greg: It's very simple. It's an emergency. It was a time of emergency, and the demands that were placed on the resources of Queensland Railways, Annette, meant there was no other option than to meet those increasing demands with what was available. Earlier today we had a talk about mend-and-make-do and those sorts of things and keep calm and carry on. Well, literally, this was wartime. It was a critical time. You had to literally look around and say, what have we got available now to be involved in the defence of Australia? It was an enormous task that was going to be placed on the Queensland Railways and the Queensland Railways had to face up to that task.
Annette: So were Queensland Rail employees allowed to enlist or was the threat of danger so close to home that they were best able to serve by continuing at the railways?
Greg: That's a very good point, Annette. The railways were what was called a protected industry. The employees were not allowed to volunteer for the war. Train crew were required to work excessive hours as a result. The work requirements were hardened. Those who drove, fired and worked on the railways, this meant they slogged away hauling heavy loads with locomotives that should have been undergoing major overhaul. But to put it simply, a protected industry meant an essential service and that meant, basically, being a supply line behind the major lines in the lines that the Army, the Navy and the Air Force were faced. So there were cases that prior to 1941, railway employees had volunteered to go into the Army and things like that, and had been serving overseas. But those who volunteered when still in Australia, in most cases they were demobbed, put back into the railways because they were deemed an essential service. And an essential service meant exactly that, Annette. It meant hard work and also meant a full-time commitment, basically, to the defence of Australia.
Interview with Paul Slater, Manager of Heritage Assets at North Ipswich Workshops
Annette: I'm talking with Paul Slater, Manager of Heritage Assets at North Ipswich Workshops. Paul oversees the work and management of Queensland Rail's Heritage fleet. He has worked on the AC16, engine number 221A, a remarkable Queensland Railway survivor of the Second World War. Ipswich Workshops were important with its industrial output in the Second World War and keeping the Queensland Railways operating during World War II, 1941-45. Paul, can you tell us a bit about your career with Queensland Rail?
Paul: I started in Queensland Rail in 1985, so that makes it – I'm working on my 38th year. I started here as an apprentice fitter, became a tradesman in 1989 and spent quite a bit of time on the floor working on wagons, carriages; and then Vince O'Rourke CEO Queensland Rail started up the heritage team, so I come back to Ipswich and joined the heritage team, and been working here ever since. I'm now the Manager of Heritage Assets and we look after all the heritage locomotives, carriages and diesels.
Annette: When you first started in 1985, what kind of locos and wagons were you working on?
Paul: At that point it was a lot of the older rolling stock, because we were going through a lot of modifications at that point, transitioning from the old hook and buffer system to auto couplers. The workshop was also building new carriages, new wagons. We were building coal wagons at that point, ballast wagons. So it was pretty busy here at that stage.
Annette: So you weren't just maintaining them, you were actually building them from scratch. That's pretty cool. We've been talking about our railway's involvement in World War II. What do you think it would have been like to be working in the railways at that time?
Workshops during the war
Paul: I think it would have been rather tough. My grandfather actually was in the workshop at that stage. The war effort in '42, '43, when the war was actually coming to Australia, Queensland Rail was very stretched. They were transporting a lot of troops, equipment to the north, which meant that a lot of the rolling stock wasn't able to be brought in for overhaul repairs. It was just patched up and sent back out to operate again. So in the later years, the rolling stock had become very poorly maintained.
Annette: With the equipment being poorly maintained, did that put extra stress on the workers, or the workshops themselves, to try and get things back up and running or keep things running?
Paul: Well, it was hard to maintain the rolling stock because the workshops didn't have the raw products to do the repairs, because most of the material was going into the war effort. So Queensland Rail just had to patch and scrimp and do whatever they could to keep the rolling stock running. That wasn't just the rolling stock. It was also track work as well. All that steel and material was going into the war effort.
Annette: It must have put a lot of demand on the workers too, trying to make something out of nothing constantly.
Paul: Yes, I think there was a lot of pride in what they were doing. They did their best to maintain whatever they could, whatever was coming into the workshop. But I think with the lack of materials and product to continually maintain the rolling stock, it just became harder for the workers to do their best job.
Annette: Did they ever end up sacrificing any wagons? So sacrifice one to repair, say, five others or something? You know, steal from Peter to pay Paul the whole way through?
Paul: At the point during the Second World War, I think a lot of our rolling stock was made of timber. So coal wagons and freight wagons all had timber underframe. So they were still getting a lot of timber coming in from forests from around south east Queensland. And Queensland Rail had two sawmills here at that stage. And they would machine all that timber down. It would then go into the K Mill, which would then manufacture all those components, and it was just like a jigsaw puzzle being put together. So I think we could still make a lot of the components; it was more the steel parts. And we would still be able to cast a lot of those components here as well.
Annette: Do you mean we could still today, like out at the Workshops Museum?
Paul: We don't have the ability to do anything here substantial anymore. A lot of the foundry, the forging shop, all went at the end of steam in the 1970s. We maintain the ability to do fabrication work, and in more recent times, we've lost a lot of our skills there as well. So the construction of rolling stock has naturally had to go to outside industry.
Annette: Yes, I can remember when Queensland Rail still had some blacksmiths. Coming into the Railways, I was like, “What? We have blacksmiths?"
Paul: We still do.
Annette: Really?
Paul: I got one.
Lynchpin in the defence of Australia – the North Coast line
Annette: Queensland Railways were described as being a lynchpin in the defence of Australia. Greg, can you tell me if there was any one particular line or part of the network that was really important to the war effort?
Greg: Very simply, most of the supplies had to go along one vital link. That was the North Coast line. Now, much of the line was built before it became a main line, which was really a series of unconnected lines, when we spoke about that patchwork railway in the past. There were sharp curves; it was light rail; bridges that were prone to flooding because water would come up, a lot of coastal streams. And so many rivers and streams to cross with bridges, there was actually a real fear, Annette, that they'd make it vulnerable to enemy sabotage as well too. So it was pretty much the North Coast line, that was the major lynchpin, and that was a major road, or a major railway, for the defence of Australia.
We mentioned before about the flooding and things like that and about the demands that were placed. Well, many times on the North Coast line between Brisbane and Maryborough, it was so congested, it was simply impossible to put another train out on the line. Now, to have done so would have increased delays, and so no greater tonnage, basically, would have been able to reach the other end. So you're thinking about almost like a chock-a-block system. There's limitations on the track with crossing loops and things like that. We'll probably talk about that a little bit further down. But basically, there's limitations; it's a single line. You need to move so much tonnage, and you've got the limitations of how many trains you can put out there. So that gives you an idea of how important that North Coast line was. It was a vital artery.
Annette: Sorry, Greg, I'm just thinking about the single line. Obviously, we've got trains going up and down. How did they manage that?
Greg: Oh, that's a great one. The additional crossing loops were critical, so more trains could be put onto the single line of the North Coast Railway. And that was able to pass themselves on those single sections. A crossing loop is basically a place where you can pass trains. There's an extra track to the side, for those who don't understand crossing loops and things like that. Now, at such times, the most urgent military loading took priority. And what actually happened at that stage, when we were talking about putting more things out onto the North Coast line and that here in Queensland, we were getting supplies, war material, everything coming up from the southern states. It actually eased back on their railings, what they were sending north at that stage, because of the realisation it'd be creating congestion and things like that, and to keep that supply line open to railways.
But anything that came north from the southern states had to be transhipped at the Queensland border because of the different gauges. So that was the places at South Brisbane, over at Clapham, which is over near Rocklea. And the other big place, of course, was Wallangarra as well, on the Queensland-New South Wales border. Everything had to be transhipped once you got to the border, if you came up through Wallangarra.
Annette: So how close together would those crossing loops have been, if our line was so congested? How far apart were they?
Greg: Well, what's interesting is a lot of those crossing loops were already there, but the big – but they were actually ones that were put in especially during the Second World War. There's actually two not too far away from us that were put in. There was one between Grandchester and Laidley, called Bangaa, which I think means crossing loop or something like that, anyhow. And there was another one that was put here on the Toowoomba Range as well too, and I think that was called Magoon. And they existed solely for the time of the Second World War. And one interesting thing about that is places like Bangaa and Magoon, for many years afterwards, even after they'd taken out service, probably in the 1940s and that, the railway gangs always put the little station sign nameboards up there as well, just as some sort of remembrance as well. But the crossing loops were there, they were extended, and they added new sidings to a lot of places as well, Annette.
Passenger trains
Annette: During this time, did we still run passenger trains?
Greg: A lot of people ask that, and it's a good question. Were the Queensland Railways taken over by the military during the Second World War? It's easy, no. Now, the railways remained a Queensland Government operation, and yet they still had to meet the demands, not only of the military, but also in supplying the war effort, but also the civilians. So there was still the expectation, even during wartime, that civilians could catch a train somewhere or get something delivered by train. So what was remarkable, and we look back on this, except for the Atherton Tablelands, they had such a huge concentration of military bases, Queenslanders were free to travel by rail wherever they wanted to go. So passenger trains were crowded, if not overcrowded. Suburban carriages they used on long-distance trains, that's without toilets or anything like that, and without compartment seating. Sleeping berths were generally unobtainable. There was no sleeping bunks or anything like that. And late running was the norm. There's no two ways about that.
They had lots of special trains also being run, because they conveyed hundreds of troops at a time. They had to be fed at long trestle tables, that were hastily erected on railway platforms throughout Queensland. But of course delays also meant that those troops were hours late being fed. So one thing is, when you look at it, we're still not sure how many troops were actually carried during the Second World War by train. Because the numbers were never properly kept. We generally like to say tens and tens and tens of thousands were carried throughout Queensland on special troop trains. That included many, many different nationalities of the Allied soldiers. And we're not talking about just Americans. We're talking about British, we're talking about Australians, we're talking about Dutch from the East Indies, Ambonese, we're talking about a whole different conglomeration of Allied forces who came here for the defence of Australia.
One interesting thing, Annette – I'm glad that you mentioned that story there about overcrowding on trains. My own father remembered travelling one time down to Brisbane from Bundaberg on a train during the Second World War, being put in with soldiers on leave and things like that, and people having to sleep in the hallways, on the walkways in the carriage. And also being young enough to be put up into a luggage rack, wrapped up, so he could sleep in the luggage rack in the carriage as well too, in the long trains that it took. But yes, it was interesting. The fact is that it was still a civilian undertaking. It was virtually – we contracted to the Commonwealth Government to basically assist in the war effort and carry the war loads.
Overstretched and under-resourced
Annette: The word crisis is mentioned when people talk about the period of late 1941 until 1944 for the Queensland Railways. Being overstretched and under-resourced, was there anything done to try and alleviate the situation?
Greg: Queensland Railways, we desperately needed more locomotives. Now, because of their proven performance and the ability to run on light track, Queensland Railways wanted to build more C17 engines. Now, the first of these could be put into service quickly, and these eventually became the most widely available class of locomotive in Queensland. That was also the one the Queensland Government wanted the Commonwealth, when they decided to step into the war effort and supply locomotives as well nationally. And Queensland said, we've got this great engine. We can build it, we're ready to go. That's another story, we'll get to that shortly, anyway. The interesting thing is – I know we've spoken about this in the past, Annette – was about Queensland Railways. We're overstretched, we're trying to source locomotives from overseas, but we're also able to make available some of our older steam locomotives, some other engines, and that was to be used on the Central Australia Railway. The old Ghan line that ran from Port Augusta up to Alice Springs. So we made available some of those locomotives, to help literally the Central Australia Railway with its overloaded system.
Locomotives
Annette: So, even in the urgency and crisis of the war situation, Queensland had enough engines and trains to be able to loan them out to other states?
Greg: Sorry, Annette, not trains, locomotives. There were 10 locomotives of that C16 class that were hired from the Queensland Railways, for the Central Australia Railway that we just spoke about before, the old Ghan line. They were placed in service progressively from June of 1942, and in June of 1943, three of those locomotives were returned to Queensland due to poor mechanical condition. So, flogged to death. The last locomotive was returned in October of 1943, and then some relief is provided by that shipment of Baldwin locomotives, known as the AC16s, that came to Queensland from the United States on that lend-lease system.
Annette: Lend-lease, did we not own them?
Greg: No, we didn't. Lend-lease, we bought them outright eventually. So lend-lease, which is they'll lease you the engine, or they'll lend it and then they'll lease it to you.
Annette: Were the AC16s the only outsider locomotive that ended up being operating in Queensland?
Greg: No, Annette, as we alluded to before, there was also a locomotive, the Australian Standard Garratt, designed by the Commonwealth Land Transport Board. It was an engine that was based around the Garratt design, which is designed really of two engines in one, to keep it simple. Now, Queensland had gone it alone, as we spoke about, trying to obtain other engines from overseas, such as the AC16, the Yanks. Now, the Australian Standard Garratt – or ASG was the short acronym on it – it was seen as a wartime measure for all the railways in Australia on the 1,067mm gauge to have one common standard engine. So you've got a gauge – so West Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, Queensland, they could have one war engine, one engine supplied by the Commonwealth to fit all sorts of things. Now unfortunately, it's a very long and complicated story that we're really unable to do justice to today. But when those engines were introduced, it's been well described as being literally a war within a war.
We've got the Queensland Government fighting with the Commonwealth Government and these great bureaucracies of railways fighting with each other over the introduction of these engines. Designing and building an engine that was considered untested, it delayed the relief by a year, I think it was, when relief was most urgently needed. And they actually had a Royal Commission into it, the introduction of the Australian Standard Garratt. It's a very interesting story that even in a time of great crisis for Australia and things like that, you still had this form of, shall we say, bureaucratic warfare going on between Commonwealth and States and things like that over the introduction of this. It's a very interesting story. And as I said, there's some very good material online, which we'll have links to, but it'll also give you ideas into the Royal Commissions that were put into the introduction of the Australian Standard Garratt. Yes, so as I said, there's a lot of material written about this. Links that we've got here today in today's episodes notes. You can find out more. And there have been some very, very good books written about it as well too, Annette.
Annette: It was a real heroic time for the Queensland Railways.
Greg: Yes, Annette, you said it well. It was a heroic time indeed. In the Commissioner's Annual Report in 1945, it was actually – it was put into paper. “Numerous expressions of appreciation of the service rendered by the Queensland Railways during the war period from all sections of the armed forces, as well as from many civilians, indicate an understanding and appreciation of the Herculean task imposed by the Department on the war. The result is now history, and to each and every employee who participated in this great effort, I tender deepest appreciation, on behalf of the Government and myself, of the valued assistance rendered to the State in this time of extreme need." That was from the report of the Commissioner for Queensland Railways in 1945.
The history of the rail at the Ipswich Workshops
Annette: How important is it that people can see in the 21st century a steam locomotive from a period of our history?
Paul: I think it's very important that we can relate back to what we used to ride on in the past. The history of the rail is all here at the Workshop. The steam locomotives being the first operating vehicles that we had. We had the change to diesel. Now we've moved on to electric trains. We've got all three based here at the Workshop and the visitors can come here and see and have a look through the museum and get an understanding of the transitions that went on in public transport.
Getting the AC16 back into service
Annette: It would be fantastic to see all three lined up, literally going from steam to diesel to electric. It would be great. So Paul, we know that the AC16 engine 221A returned to service back in 2003. Was there any changes that we needed to make, to make it fit into today?
Paul: When the locomotive was put into the Redbank Rail Museum, it was in very poor condition. The locomotive had been operating for many years. It still retained one of the original boilers. So when the locomotive was stripped down, the boiler was found to be unserviceable. We then had to go out to industry to find someone to build us a brand new boiler, because new boilers hadn't been made in the previous 50 years. The boiler was actually contracted out to an engineering company down in Melbourne, and they constructed the new boiler. But on top of that, there was a lot of other things that had to be modified. Being a wartime locomotive, they really scrimped and saved and cut corners.
Some of the things that we had to do, the tender on the locomotive, the water tank and the coal bunker on the back, it was the original design. Traditionally, the AC16s had a lot of trouble with these tenders; they kept jumping off the track. In the days of steam, they replaced them with a B17 or a C16 tender, which had come off of a locomotive that had been scrapped. We took the original design and we actually built another tender that looked like an original AC16 tender, but it was fully welded. The bogies, we used the more modern bogie underneath it, which stopped the tender from bouncing up and down. The other issue was the shovelling plate on the tender was actually on the floor, right down at foot level. Queensland Rail traditionally had one that was about knee high, so that the firemen didn't have to bend down. So what we did was, we took the internals of the B18 quarter or BB18 quarter locomotive, and put that on the inside of the design of the AC16 tender, which made it a lot more functional. Carried the same amount of water, same amount of coal, but was more functional for the driver.
The original tenders never had a handbrake on them. We stuck a diesel handbrake on there, made that operate quite well. We changed the fire hole door system. It used to have – looked very much like an oven door. We went to the scissor doors that we had on all of our other locomotives. The brake system was an American-designed system. So we converted that over to the Westinghouse brake system that was common on all of our other locomotives. We also had to replace a lot of the tyres, because they had worn down so much. All those tyres come in from South Africa, from a company over there that was still manufacturing tyres. The AC16 class never had a cow catcher on the front, so we put a cow catcher on the front. Also modified where the draw hooks were. We put an auto coupler in there and upgraded all the braking pipes, air system, all the way through the locomotive. Some of the other things that we did was put an electronic speedo inside of it, which runs straight off the GPS. It was one of the first ones, first type of GPS speedo that was being developed at the time.
Annette: An immense amount of work went into getting this rolling stock back up and running for Queensland Rail.
Paul: It was a very big job. And we had probably a team of about 20 people that were working on this locomotive full time. The overhaul took us three years. The boiler, luckily, was late being delivered. So that allowed us to do all this other work while we were waiting for the boiler to arrive.
Annette: The boiler, you said it was the original boiler. How long would a boiler normally last if this one was 50 years old?
Paul: In the days of steam, the boilers would last about 10 years before they would be taken out and stripped down and rebuilt. Depending on the condition of the steel plate, the boiler inspector would test the thickness of these plates. If they were down around the condemning size, then the boiler would be scrapped. But traditionally, they would cut the plates out, rebuild it, test it, put the boiler back into service. Because the workforce here at the time in the late 40s, early 50s, numbered in excess of 3,000 people, we had lots of staff here to do that work. There was a whole shop dedicated to the overhaul and construction of boilers at the Workshop here.
Annette: Wow! So you had a whole workshop too. We had to go to Melbourne to get one. That's – times definitely changed. My last question: It took three years to get the engine back in service. So we picked up the engine, say, 2000. Where had it been prior to that since the war?
Paul: So the locomotive continued in service until 1968 when it was written off. Once it had been written off, it was returned to Ipswich Workshop and it sat in the yard here on Rotten Row. Later in the early 70s, they decided to start building a rail museum at Redbank. The ARHS, the Australian Rail Historical Society, through the Government, got funding to put this museum together. So they were going around collecting locomotives to go in there. The AC16 was here at the Workshop. The old tender was still here. So they paired the two of them up and they put them together in the rail museum. Then in the early 90s, we extracted all the locomotives out of that museum because they were all becoming very rusty because they all sat out in the weather. All put here under cover and the AC16 was then decided to be overhauled, I think in 1999. The locomotive was taken into the workshop and stripped down and the condition of the locomotive was found to be very poor. So hence the reason why it took three years to overhaul and bring it back to what it is today.
Queensland Railways' post-war effort
Annette: So Greg, what was the post-war effort period like for the Queensland Railways?
Greg: Not surprisingly, Annette, the system ended the war in a terribly run-down state. The Minister for Transport at the time actually said we flogged the railway to death, and he put that in writing. If you read that in this day and age, it's a very telling statement and it indicates exactly what was expected of the railways at that stage. There was a huge backlog of repairs and investment took years to overcome. Despite the introduction of diesel electric locomotives and air-conditioned long-distance trains, trains in the early 1950s, it actually took over well over a decade or more to recover from the effects of the war. I even think, in a way, about 15 years, so probably not until the late 1950s, at that time of crisis, that three to four year period for the railways to fully come back from the Second World War.
I guess, Annette, I was thinking about this and reading about it today and reflecting on my own family history, of a grandfather who was very much involved in the war effort and sadly didn't see it out. He was an engine driver at North Bundaberg and that. It's a very interesting time and we're talking about it here today, and yet 80 years on, the defence of Australia and the role of the railways, it's still really not that well-known a story. But the recovery, coming back in the 1950s, as we say in history, and you and I know, that's a story for another time.
Conclusion
Annette: We want to thank you for listening to today's episode. A huge thank you to our special guest, Paul Slater. I hope you enjoyed learning about the Queensland Railways and the defence of Australia. Remember, we love hearing from our listeners and invite you to connect with us via the Queensland Rail Facebook or Instagram accounts. Here, you can ask us any questions or share any suggestions on what topics you would like us to cover in future episodes. We'll see you here next time for another episode of the Queensland Rail History podcast. Stay safe, everyone.