Burdekin and the Haughton Rivers

Submitted: Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 06:42
ThreadID: 87183 Views:4721 Replies:2 FollowUps:5
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I would like to share some photo's of the old Burdekin Rail bridge and the Haughton in flood. For those who have seen the Burdekin in true flood they will tell you what an amazing site it is. The River in these photo's has minimal run and it goes many, many metres above that old rail bridge.

Even today the Haughton road bridge on the Bruce highway is very narrow and has no handrails at all. Sitting on 100kph and anything happens you are in the drink.

They make a big deal of the Bruce being cut for a couple of days but when the old old bridge across the Burdekin was in use it would be cut for weeks.

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Patsy Adam-Smith’s book on Railwaymen has some incredible stories of the old low level Burdekin bridge and trains and lives lost. Long before Weather Bureau was in its present form, when communication was “telephone telegraph and errrr write a letter” , Railway staff either side of this bridge would regularly ring various properties upstream to make a guess on when the bridge would cut and trains would need to halt. Once the bridge cut often trains would be sent Rockhampton-Longreach-Winton-Hughenden-Townsville...if you can even start to comprehend a detour like that...

Apparently the theory was by making it comparatively low flood debris would wash over rather than into the bridge and minimise damage. Some tim es for all the best predictions of staff a train would come to grief on the bridge- sticks would wash down and lodge in brake gear and lock the train up on the bridge with rising waters all around etc etc- been quite a few lives lost I think as trains have been overwhelmed by flood waters on the bridge at various tim es.
Don’t know whether it was the incident shown here but a cattle train washed off once when floating debris snagged the brakes and locked the train up on the bridge- at least one guy drowned and one guy who couldn’t swim saved himself by grabbing the tail of a beast and using the beast to get him to dry land...

Have a good one,
RA.



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Reply By: George_M - Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 10:28

Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 10:28
Nice set of photos, RA.

I worked at Macrossan in 1970, and it was interesting to see some of the rich history of the place - including the WW2 airbase just to the south of this bridge.

George_M
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Follow Up By: George_M - Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 10:35

Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 10:35
Oh dear.

My history-loving wife has just told me I got my bridges over the Burdekin mixed up.

Old-timers disease setting in:-)

George_M
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Follow Up By: Rockape - Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 12:46

Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 12:46
George,
you did ok, mate at least the Macrossan crosses the Burdekin and it goes a long, long way underwater.

Have a good one,
RA.
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Reply By: Axle - Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 11:29

Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 11:29
GDay RA, Always interesting structures like that, Nothing wrong with the ol engineers...lol, that bridge stood the test of time. Geez!!theres some water there.


Cheers Axle.
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Follow Up By: Rockape - Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 12:37

Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 12:37
Axle,
this is a photo of the river in a big flood, I just grabbed it off the net and if you compare it to the side view of the new bridge you can see how much far the flood waters come up.
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Have a good one,
RA.
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Follow Up By: Olsen's 4WD Tours and Training - Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 14:48

Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 14:48
I grew up in Home Hill, and swam in that river when the level was as high as that- was pretty exciting.
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Follow Up By: bgreeni - Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 15:53

Saturday, Jun 25, 2011 at 15:53
For a number of years when I was with QR I was responsible for the bridge maintenance. In those days QR maintained the bridge and claimed 52% (from memory) of the cost back from main roads.

We had 2 paint gangs permanently painting. The southern end was the worst due to corrosive smoke from the sugar mill.

Bridge was very difficult to maintain due to pockets where water could get trapped and keep steel wet. I believe when built the bridge was supposed to never need painting, but by the time completed the sections built first already needed painting.
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