National Library of Australia - Gateways

ISSN 1443-0568 | no. 75 | June 2005


Trainspotting —The Buckland Collection on Display

[Engine 3259 on down Goulburn passenger at Picton, September 1935] by John L. Buckland

John L. Buckland
[Engine 3259 on down Goulburn passenger at Picton, September 1935]
b&w photograph; 8.5 x 13.7 cm
Buckland collection of railway transport photographs
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an23252453

[CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

John L. Buckland
The Newcastle Express coming off the Hawkesbury River bridge, New South Wales, c.1930
b&w photograph; 20.2 x 15.1 cm
Buckland collection of railway transport photographs
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an24768250

[CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

The railway is one of the greatest inventions of the Victorian era, and still one of its most important legacies.

With our vast distances, railways have been particularly important in Australia, helping connect the bush to the city. Outwards poured newspapers and books. Back came passengers, letters, and produce, especially wool. Railways were seen as an important part of nation-building. Indeed the differing gauges—the width of the rails—came to symbolise many of the colonial differences which it was believed would be settled by Federation. (In fact, it took many years beyond Federation to achieve a standard national gauge.)

There was an interest in railways in New South Wales from as early as 1846, when a line to Goulburn was proposed, but early schemes were bedevilled by a lack of capital, expertise, and technology. After the gold rushes, interest was revived, and construction of the first line (to Parramatta) began. The money was colonial, but everything else about New South Wales’ first railway was British. The engineers were English, the line was built by 500 navvies especially brought out, engine No. 1 was made by Robert Stephenson and Co., Newcastle, and the carriages came from Birmingham. The regulations were English, and so was the first driver, William Sixsmith. The line opened to passenger traffic on 26 September 1855.

Following the building of lines came an ‘infrastructure’ of workshops, tunnels, bridges, signals and stations, the most spectacular, the Great Zig Zag in the Blue Mountains, and the Hawkesbury River bridge, both products of the extraordinary engineer-in-chief, John Whitton. As important, was the ‘human capital’; from the boilermakers at Eveleigh near Redfern, to the fettlers and gangers who lived a tough life in the bush maintaining the lines. It was perhaps at first a paternalistic system, but one that became increasingly unionised. Former Prime Minister Ben Chifley was an engine driver, while New South Wales Premier, Bob Carr is the son of one.

To commemorate the sesquicentenary of the running of the first trains in New South Wales and similar anniversaries in other states, the National Library of Australia is presenting Trainspotting, a display of photographs from the Buckland collection, chosen by Mr Bob Parker, and presented in two parts. Mr Parker has a formidable knowledge of Australia’s railways and for many years has been voluntarily cataloguing the Library’s collections. These number some 24 000 photographs, and an extensive manuscript collection. John Buckland (1915–1989) was a life-long railway enthusiast, and with David Beardsell and Norman Cave was the author of Steam Locomotives of the Victorian Railways.

[Engine 3259 on down Goulburn passenger at Picton, September 1935] by John L. Buckland [Engine 3259 on down Goulburn passenger at Picton, September 1935] by John L. Buckland

John L. Buckland
[Unidentified N.S.W.G.R. employee sitting on a railway switch in front of steam locomotive 3673 with smoke deflectors at Eveleigh, New South Wales [between 1930 and 1950]
b&w photograph; 13.9 x 8.2 cm
Buckland collection of railway transport photographs
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an24768425

John L. Buckland
Coal Creek, c.1950
b&w photograph; 8.7 x 14.3 cm
Buckland collection of railway transport photographs
Pictures Collection, nla.pic-an23458680

[CLICK ON EITHER IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

Part one of Trainspotting will be on display, on the fourth floor, from 12 July 2005 until 22 January 2006. Part two will be on display from 24 January until 16 July.
—MARTIN TERRY, Exhibitions Curator, mterry@nla.gov.au

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