Made by The Commonwealth Film Unit 1964. Directed by Bern Gandy. A classroom film featuring the railways of Australia. It also deals with freight, rolling stock, prime-movers and break of gauge.
I remember the Tea & Sugar train. My early years were spent following my dad who was a driller. Mum, my big sister, and I traveled in an FX Holden towing an 18 foot Franklin caravan, following the drill rig to jobs. We often lived in the middle of nowhere while dad was drilling water bores, or doing core tests in remote parts of South Australia, outback Queensland, and even the Whitsunday Islands. We moved to Perth in the early 70s, and the Tea & Sugar was part of our geography and history lesson. It was still running back then.
I think it's interesting to compare the number of people employed by the railways back then and all the different roles they undertook with the current operations.
Trains aren't a bad way to travel. NSW Railways used to make most of their things in the workshops. They employed tradesmen for all jobs. There was no grafitti, trains and stations were cleaner.
Great film, thanks for posting. This had a very similar feel to Rank Studios Look At Life series of films which showed different aspects of British life during the 50s & 60s.
in Australia, or are the sleepers lighter than in Russia or the railroad workers are stronger? I see the second film as two workers easily carry the sleepers! I myself work as a worker on the railway - we carry the sleepers with tongs
An excellent documentary and given in commendable and reasonable delivery rythm. Oh, but of course far too slow and boring for today’s generation I bet! Hmmm, never mind, the Generation of 1900-1930 has been and still is the very best of all heroic generations...and as « a child of that Generation » I give my thanks.....deeply and sincerely so...
Hi Brad - thank you and take your point. Uploaded before we did that regularly - which we do now. It's tricky to alter already published videos on RU-vid but will look into it.
