. A Sheffield No. 1 Velocipede Car on the Kurrawang Woodline in Western Australia. Fretwell, the child in the photograph, wrote the following caption: These woodlines used to supply timber to the mines and Kalgoorlie Power House. The lines were moved about to follow the salmon gum forests. The rails were leased from the Govt. Railways by the Timber Co. and once a year this trolley had to be run all over the line and spurs to measure the distance. Fretwell on Trolley. Timber cutters were nearly all Yugo-Slavs. In his 2006 book Australian Railwayman: From Cadet Engineer to Railway


. A Sheffield No. 1 Velocipede Car on the Kurrawang Woodline in Western Australia. Fretwell, the child in the photograph, wrote the following caption: These woodlines used to supply timber to the mines and Kalgoorlie Power House. The lines were moved about to follow the salmon gum forests. The rails were leased from the Govt. Railways by the Timber Co. and once a year this trolley had to be run all over the line and spurs to measure the distance. Fretwell on Trolley. Timber cutters were nearly all Yugo-Slavs. In his 2006 book Australian Railwayman: From Cadet Engineer to Railways Commissioner, Dr Ron Fitch wrote: For about 40 years, the WA Goldfields Firewood Company operated a small but efficient 1067 mm narrow gauge railway, commonly known as the Kurrawang Wood Line. Starting from Kamballie at the southem end of the Golden Mile, the railway cut across to Kurrawang on the WAGR main line 13 kilometres west of Kalgoorlie. It then extended northwards from Kurrawang, shifting the line as the timber cut out. Finally, it swung south, again crossing the main line, this time at Calooli, 14 kilometres west of Coolgardie. From this point, the line stretched as far as 130 kilometres to the south and south-west. ... Although the company had its own locomotive and rolIing stock, at times WAGR vehicles travelled over the line. In order to assess royalty payments, the Railway Department would undertake periodical measurement of the lengths of the main and spur lines. This would be carried out using a pulling tricycle - colloquially known as an Armstrong - fitted with a revolution counter, the number of revolutions being converted into distance. In January 1932, I made one such measurement, at which time the longest spur had reached a point only a few kilometres west of Pioneer, a lonely siding on the Coolgardie-Esperance railway just 43 kilometres short of Norseman. . May 1928. William Edward Fretwell  (–1958)   Alternative names William Edward Fretwell


Size: 2720px × 1838px
Photo credit: © The Picture Art Collection / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No

Keywords: coolgardie, fretwell, henry, kurrawang, neil, rail, trolley, woodline