Queensland - Wallangarra

By David Ellis

The bean-counters running the Colonies of New South Wales and Queensland came up with a rather grand idea for augmenting their somewhat puny coffers back in the 1880s: each whacked a Customs charge on just about everything that crossed the border from one Colony to the other.

While a financial windfall for each government, it was anything but welcomed by struggling farmers and pioneering business people.

NSW put its Customs Officer in an office on the railway station that served the twin towns of Jennings (NSW) and Wallangarra (Queensland,) while the Queenslanders built their man a stand-alone affair on what is now the New England Highway, and at which everyone had to present themselves – and their goods – when coming up from the south.

The first Queensland Customs Excise Agent was a Mr James Long who opened shop in October 1885 with almost missionary zeal, slapping Excise on everything he could: when Queensland farmers sent their wheat to millers in NSW for making into flour, the New South Welshmen considered it primary produce and so did not charge Duty or Excise.

But when their wheat came back into Queensland as flour, Mr Long imposed Excise on it as a “manufactured product” from another Colony. The countless howls of indignation were simply ignored.

And making matters even more difficult for business and other travellers was the rail service itself: NSW decided its trains would travel along tracks 4-feet-8-and-a-half-inches wide (1435mm.) But Queensland’s bureaucracy decided that it would cost too much to buy and build steam engines, freight wagons and passenger carriages for so wide a rail gauge, and laid its rail lines just 3-feet-6-inches apart (1067mm.)

This meant that all freight going from one colony to the other had to be taken off one train and put onto another at Wallangarra’s station. And to make it all the more irksome, all passengers would have to change trains too, and await their luggage being transferred from one train to the other.

But just as bizarrely as the Customs Excise and the difference in rail gauges, the two colonial governments couldn’t even agree on all aspects of design of the grand Victorian-era Wallangarra Railway Station they built in 1887. So passengers alighted from Queensland’s trains under a bull-nosed corrugated iron awning on their side of the station, and those from NSW trains under a flat corrugated awning on their side, an arrangement that gave the station a most-certainly one-off appearance.

But at least passengers could get a meal and a drink: at its peak the Wallangarra Station Railway Refreshment Room was serving an amazing 57,000 meals a year, complete with wines from a vast underground cellar.

One passenger who was particularly peeved by the shambles of the difference in rail gauges and the imposition of Customs Excise that delayed him at the border, was Henry (later Sir Henry) Parkes – so annoyed in fact, that once aboard his train and heading to home in NSW after one incident, he began penning his famous “Father of Federation” speech.

Wallangarra Station remained in use for freight trains until 1997 although most passenger services had taken to the new “coastal” service that linked Sydney and Brisbane with a single gauge track in 1930. The last passenger train had run out of Wallangarra in 1972, and with the station’s final closure thirteen years ago it simply fell into disrepair.

In 2001 however, a Centenary of Federation grant enabled it to be totally refurbished and today a local retired farmer and grazier, Brendan Cusack together with Lynne Schenck of the Jennings Hotel operate “Border Rail” that’s attracting growing numbers of visitors to Wallangarra-Jennings with a monthly craft and produce market on the station, and special functions in the now-restored Railway Refreshment Room.

The Southern Downs Steam Railway group also operates leisurely steam-train trips from Warwick to Stanthorpe with a visit to Wallangarra that includes lunch catered by Lynne and Brendan in the historic Refreshment Room.

There’s plenty else to reward a visit to the area with the famous Queensland Granite Belt wineries nearby, four National Parks in the area, the hideout of bushranger Frederick Ward (“Thunderbolt,”) and a welcoming local pub and golf club.

For further information about visiting Wallangarra email bpcusack@iinet.net.au, or visit www.jenningspub.com.au or www.granitebeltwinecountry.com.au