The wood trains of the 17 Mile Camp and Gindalbie
Wood for the gold mines by Rod Milne
The WAGR terminus at Kanowna dealt with a large tonnage of firewood traffic from the wood line, and these trucks are depicted standing in the middle roads between the station and overline goods shed. The WAGR allowed of through conveyance of trucks between the private and public tracks. Photo: R Milne Collection
The fact that trains once ran as far as the Gindalbie district 60 km northeast of Kalgoorlie is surely a miracle in itself,
demonstrating just how far the gold mines of the district were required to go to supply their wood needs. Not a great moment for the environment, the great firewood boom of the late 1890s and early 1900s saw vast areas of native bushland exploited to supply the gold mining industries throughout Australia.
Most of the timber out Gindalbie way was mulga, a small tree (Acacia aneura) covering a lot of inland Australia. Peppered amongst the mulga lands were larger, quite statuesque gum trees, notably salmon gum, gimlet, and other species, all being used in the voracious wood industry. Each year during the height of the gold boom, a huge tonnage of native wood was railed to key Kalgoorlie stations such as Golden Gate for distribution to mines, with Kanowna’s mines also needing supply. There were also sandalwood cutters bringing in this highly valued timber.
Nowadays with little more than a fork in the dirt road going to Yarri, Gindalbie lost its last building a long time ago, in the form of the dilapidated Gindalbie Hotel. It also had a store, a hall (the famed Miners’ Institute), a post office, and a gaggle of humpies, the poppet head of the big mine just east of the surveyed townsite disappearing quite recently.
The Pioneer Store at Gindalbie
Sitting on a lonely gentle ridge above the lower terrain through which the wood line passed, Gindalbie’s glory days were brief indeed, the brief gold boom spawning a small townsite just south of the wetland, Emu Lake. The company involved in the wood cutting industry of Kanowna was called the Westralian Timber and Firewood Company (WTFC), another large operator working out of Kurrawang west of Kalgoorlie. The WTFC’s firewood lands lay north of Kanowna, beyond a low saddle gap just north of the town out beyond Golden Valley (surveyed in 1902), and the company commenced operations there with the commencement of WAGR services from Kalgoorlie. There,
west of the townsite and railway station, it constructed a depot and wood yard, with the new wood railway line
running north from there. It was a lengthy system like most WA goldfield wood lines, going as far north as Gindalbie (and a little beyond) as well as east towards another gold mining townsite at Kurnalpi and northwest towards Broad Arrow.
By the time the system closed in 1908, the little wood trains were going a long way to get their wood. On Saturday 11 December 1897, Kanowna received its opening Government train from Kalgoorlie, the new track enabling direct wood line access via the WAGR to the gold mines at Golden Gate. The WTFC private line commenced from the end of the main line just beyond the goods yard, a sharp curve and simple points being its formal commencement point. Then it left the WAGR yard and crossed Lowes Street on its way over the WFTC depot and yard. A rickety line north and east at the northern end of Kanowna station yard, the wood line made its simple connection with the WAGR, through running of trucks being allowed for many years, at least when the wood line track was in reasonable order. The sharp left-hand curve that took the wood line out of Kanowna led to a short straight over to the Westralia Timber and Firewood Company’s wood line depot. Here, the company maintained a basic facility with a small wood line yard, basic loco facilities for its engines, office, and weighbridge. The weighbridge enabled the company to work
out the tonnage of wood coming in off the bush lines, and then being transferred on to various destinations, some by the WAGR.
The former weighbridge pit at the Kanowna wood line depot was
very obvious in this 1983 scene looking east towards the interchange
with the WAGR. Photo: Jeff Austin
In days gone by, the Kanowna wood line depot site was an obvious one, though the growth of non-native weeds in
recent years has made the site a hard one to find. Curving to the north, the wood line then headed out into the bush, bidding farewell to the relatively cosmopolitan, in its time, Kanowna, with its hospital, stores, and hotels. Life for those
on the wood line was a tough one devoid of such facilities, the wood train providing some transport for basic company supplies. However, the company refused to haul general freight to the store at the 17 Mile Camp, perhaps reasoning that the tonnage of wood hauled by the train would be impacted adversely by hauling too much other loadings. In its glory days, the whistle of the daily wood train departures and arrivals would have been heard all over the then bustling Kanowna. If the wood line at Kanowna could be described as having a “main line’, the first 17 miles was it, not that the track conditions particularly warranted such a lofty description. Naturally, the Kanowna 17 Mile Camp section was the initial main stem down which most wood traffic flowed, from which the system branched out to myriad spurs. However, the Kanowna system was somewhat unusual in its development and structure, not resonating with the fishbone system that characterised other wood lines. At Kanowna, the wood line system was somewhat more shambolic.
Looking south along the rather obvious pindan formation of the wood line, this 2012 view shows the remnant of the Kanowna wood line several miles south of Gindalbie townsite near the former 17 Mile Camp. Even at this stage over a hundred years after the last train ran, dog spikes were found by Bernie Morris. Photo: Rod Milne
That initial ‘main line’ ran to the west of the main road north, largely to avoid higher ground including a number of
low hills and breakaways in the vicinity of the Four Mile and Golden Valley. It’s a sharp drop down from the Kanowna area onto the lower country, where a series of salt pans and lakes stretches east towards distant Kurnalpi. The wood line main stem crossed that series of low salt pans to reach the mulga and the other side. It was here the main junctions were sited, with wood line spurs heading both north and east. The one to the east fringed the salt lake country and ran through empty mulga scrub, splitting into two distinct stems in the vicinity of Reidy Swamp, where one long line ran south passing to the east of the well-known Lake Perkollili to end in the scrub around Billabong Dam. There were at least four significant spurs in this area, which is due east of the town of Kanowna, the southernmost extent being near the Patch Dam.
Woodline woodcutters at their bough roofed camp
The other main stem continued on from Reidy Swamp to end in another series of dead ends on the property “Carmelia”, with the easternmost extent near the Garibaldi mine. The next major stem ran due north from a junction a little north of the first junction and also boasted a couple of spurs passing near the old gold mining ghost town of Mulgarrie. Indeed, in this area, an extension of the Broad Arrow firewood railway connected with the Kanowna system, allowing through working if needed. Both ran a fair way on, the wood company engines required to go even further to get wood. This was a long stem that reached the northernmost extent of the Kanowna system, terminating several miles northwest of Gindalbie townsite in the vicinity of the Gnamma Hole dam.
Northeast of the junctions to the east and north stems, the main north stem of the wood line headed towards Gindalbie, the alignment much of the way close to the Yarri Road. Indeed, in 1900, a new section of the wood line stem was constructed close by this road, the original route lying one or two miles to the west. Near the Halfway Hill and Black Swan mine, the two alignments rejoined. The main work camp and depot was called 17 Mile Camp, obviously, because it was located this distance from Kanowna. The site of this was several miles southwest of Gindalbie, where several wood spurs separated from the main stem, one of them crossing the Yarri Road to serve wood reserves in this area. A map of the system shows a proposed Henderson’s spur dated 1903 in the area. Nearby was what was called 18 Mile Siding, the 17 Mile Camp boasting a general store (MA McCabe and Co) to supply the needs of the timber cutters. This was a branch store of McCabe and Company’s store in Kanowna, and until 1907, was supplied by road due to the wood line company’s refusal to haul non-company supplies on the railway. This led to a dispute with agitation to the State Government to force the WTFC to provide ‘common carrier’ access on the line. Meanwhile, the wood company decided to set up its own general store at the 17 Mile Camp, it was said because it was concerned the private McCabe and Company general store was overcharging its cutters.
Drawn S.Gould from mapping compiled by Rod Milne and Bernie Morris LRRSA 2016
In 1904, McCabe and Co’s store sought a ‘gallon licence’ for alcohol indicating that there was a serious demand for the same from the woodcutters. There was not a lot to occupy the men in their rest time, though a woodchop competition was held on Wednesday 18 May 1904. Gindalbie had a hotel and a miner’s institute, but it was three miles up the road. The long northern spur extended beyond the 17 Mile Camp towards Gindalbie, the wood line bifurcating to split into two dead ends west and southwest of the low ridge line upon which the townsite of Gindalbie was gazetted. In this open flat mulga country, the wood company obtained much of its supply, each area accessed by a temporary spur line laid off the main branch. Once the wood in the area was cut, the whole spur would be lifted and shifted further along to a fresh virgin area and relaid. Thus, the wood line maps that show the extent of the systems is misleading, as most of the spurs did not operate concurrently.
The system was a constantly changing one, as spurs were pulled up and shifted to a new area for loading. It was never the extensive ‘cane railway’ system that the maps seem to suggest. Track work was decidedly basic and reflected the temporary nature of wood cutting as an industry. The main stem to 17 Mile Camp was maintained at a reasonable standard suitable to allow the daily wood train to run out at a sedate speed, but the spurs were very basic, some using light 20 lb rails known by the WTFC staff as ‘snap and rattle’. Derailments regularly occurred, with a variety of 45 lb rails also used, some new and a lot of second hand.
Kanowna Saw Mill
The track lay almost on ground level, with minimal earthworks and embankments in the flat red soil terrain. In November 1903, the local East Coolgardie Roads Board at Kanowna considered complaints about the
poor quality of level crossings on the wood line. When the wood trains were running, they were used
to ferry supplies and water to company woodcutters and sandalwood getters along the way. In the early part of the 20th century, the roads in this area were nigh on non-existent, a permanent way, even in its most basic form as a wood line, was a valuable asset. However, the company did not encourage non-company traffic, perhaps to ensure that the load of the train was devoted mainly to the paying wood traffic. However, on 9 February 1907, the WTFC opened its own general store at the 17 Mile Camp and supplied it by its own train in the last months the system operated.
At Kurrawang and Lakewood, the other wood line company ran its own store where goods could be railed out to the bush on the company train, but Kanowna did not favour this practice at least till 1907 when the company store at 17 Mile Camp opened. On Saturday 7 January 1905, the wood train conveyed a remarkable object in addition to wood. A large nugget of gold, reportedly weighing 112 ounces, had been found in the bush around the 17 Mile Camp and was railed back to Kanowna. Almost immediately, a gold rush was spawned as alluvial areas were explored in what was called the ‘Wood Line Gold Rush’.
At its loco depot at Kanowna, the wood line company maintained a small number of steam locos for its traffic needs.
For most of the time the wood line functioned, G class locos were mainly used, though there was an A class in traffic for some time too. The latter loco was called Day Dawn and was used in the construction of the Leonora and Laverton lines by the Public Works Department who sold it to the company in January 1903. Essentially, the engine went out to Kanowna from Kalgoorlie once the construction task was complete.
In April 1905, G 127 came to the Kanowna depot, while another loco of the same class, G 123, was hired from the
WAGR. These were diminutive former WAGR locos, the As being tiny compared to the Gs, which were themselves
minute. In the last years of the Kanowna and 17 Mile Camp operations, G 123 and G 127 would have dominated, with the A class perhaps assisting at 17 Mile Camp. Work consisted of a daily wood train up the bush to the cutting areas in the morning, returning later in the day with loaded trucks of wood. Alas, we have no details of how the wood line was worked, though one would imagine the two Gs did the bulk of the work. It would be good to know whether Day Dawn worked much, perhaps as the “bush loco” at 17 Mile Camp. The area being a dry one indeed, railing water was a significant event for both loco and domestic purposes.
The company fleet contained a number of water trucks taken out each day to supply the bush camps and other settlers. The load of the morning wood train included these as well as a good rake of open trucks for wood traffic. Tacked on the end was accommodation for company workers and supplies, the train essentially functioning as a mixed train, albeit a private one. As stated before, the company was not a ‘common carrier’ and seemed reluctant to haul other traffic than for its customers and needs almost to the very end. The companies usually used a loco at the bush camp at 17 Mile to gather up the wood off the spurs for the daily wood train to Kanowna. The bush camps themselves were very humble places, lonely and isolated localities suitable only for the more hardy of men. If only those lonely clearings in the mulga could talk, and tell of times long gone when the mulga rang to the sound of axes and wood being loaded into trucks for the gold mines. Mulga and other wood was stacked in open wooden trucks, there being provision for through working of WAGR trucks which could then run south of Kanowna if needed on the Government system. The R class was a common bogie wooden open truck but four wheelers also were used too. A view of Kanowna station yard in the heyday shows two tracks full of bogie wooden wagons, each containing wood stacked almost vertically to optimise the tonnage. Regular inspections were held by WAGR officers of the wood lines to ensure that the permanent way was of sufficient standard for Government trucks.
Woodcutters camp
The wood camps were dangerous places to live and work, where snakes abounded and accidents were common. As with the Kurramia wood line which provided a regular supply of patients for the Bulong hospital, the Kanowna wood line had the same relationship to the Kanowna “White Feather” hospital. It was not uncommon for the afternoon wood train back to Kanowna to convey an injured man to the hospital. Some were critically injured, it being a hard life at the bush camps. Two sad cases are reported in the last years of the Kanowna
wood line, both with fatal results. On Tuesday 19 November 1907, an employee of the company was killed when the wood train was shunting at the 18 Mile Siding. As the train was detaching four trucks, he fell off one and was dragged underneath the train. Previously in early 1906, another man had lost his life in a similar situation, the train was not able to get him to the hospital to save his life. Wood traffic conveyed between the Kanowna line and the mines around Golden Gate reached a level at one stage that serious consideration was given to the idea of creating a
triangular junction on the eastern side of Kalgoorlie so traffic could run directly to the Kamballie line bypassing Kalgoorlie. From the point of view of topography, it is a challenging place to create a fork line, the ground falling sharply from both the Kanowna and Golden Gate lines into Kalgoorlie. In those days, the line was double track from Kalgoorlie out to Kamballie, an extraordinary thing in itself. Still, the fact that survey work was actually done with the aim of connecting Kanowna and Boulder directly shows just how much traffic was passing between the two lines in that brief boom era. The last whistle from Gindalbie The voracious appetite of the gold mining industry for wood
supplies caused huge areas around Kanowna to be denuded of its needs. Remarkably, the woodcutters ended up working out at distant Gindalbie and Kurnalpi, such as the rampant need for wood supplies. Within fifteen years, the wood line company was looking for new areas to desecrate, though it seems the demise came unexpectedly, given the company’s opening of a new general store at the 17 Mile Camp in February 1907 the year before the Kanowna wood line closed. Barely seven months later, the company relocated its depot and office to a
new site at Kurramia in September 1907, though operations lingered on at Kanowna till February 1908. It is not known when the last train ran in the Gindalbie district, but it was probably about 1908 when the last wood was cut and the company packed up to move to Kurramia. At the very least, engines went to Gindalbie to lift the track and
gather it all back to Kanowna and the new depot at Kurramia. Lock, stock and barrel, the entire operation was taken
down to Kurramia where a new main depot was established.
Cut and Stacked wood ready for loading
Obviously, rails and probably sleepers and dog spikes were also taken along as well, though the relatively large numbers of spikes still in the mulga near the 17 Mile Camp and Gindalbie in 2012 suggest that not everything was taken. The wood industry was still in a strong enough economic state to leave things like dog spikes behind. At the new depot at Kurramia, the Kanowna locos were rehoused in a new shed. It is indeed an irony that the Kurramia operation was set to last fewer years than at Kanowna but this demise was largely a result of the collapse of the gold mining industry at the time of the First World War.
1908 was one of the last good years for Kanowna. The wood depot left town, but by 1917, the railway station was unattended and people were leaving in droves. In a remarkably short time, the once bustling town was as good as deserted. By the time Bernie Morris was a young man in the early 1950s, the hotel and two inhabited shacks were all that remained. Remarkably, as late as the winter of 2012 when Bernie followed the old route, there were places close to the Yarri Gindalbie road where the old formation was obvious, with dog spikes still in place. Given the fact the system had been shifted by 1908 to Kurramia, it is another of those miracles about this empty country that relics can remain untouched for years. You could almost imagine those far-off days of the early 20th century, when
G 123 and G 127 rattled along through the empty mulga scrub bringing in the wood for the local gold mining industry, and cutters lived hard lives devoid of the so-called improvements of civilisation. It was no wonder that sly grog flourished in the harsh emptiness of the wood camps. In those days at least, it was no country for women.
References and acknowledgments
I wish to particularly thank Bernie Morris for showing me around the wood line and Jeff Austin for his invaluable book on the subject of the wood lines of the area, about which there is still not much known. Ideally, more of the old drivers who worked out of the WTFC depot at Kanowna would have been interviewed before they passed on so that a lot of the gaps in our knowledge could have been filled in, but these men were old by the 1940s. It would be wonderful to know details of working the cross-country line to Broad Arrow and also the long spur east towards Kurnalpi. Unfortunately, the very short life of the Kanowna wood line ensured that records on it would be skimpy, to say the least.
This story was published with the permission of the Light Rail magazine
Moya Sharp
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Hi Moya,
My mothers grand uncles, Henry (Harry) and Norman McLeod, supposedly started a water condensing plant in 1895 in the 17 mile area around Kalgoorlie.
Does any information exist about this business ?
regards
Iain Kilcullen
QLD
I’m sorry Iain I cant find any reference to the business. They may have run the business under another name apart from their ow. I check the post offices directories and the newspapers.