The Last Passenger Train

Tasmania’s narrow-gauge rail network evolved haphazardly over the past 140 or so years, initially through a number of private concerns, before being taken over by the state at the beginning of the 20^th century. Most traffic was freight, principally minerals, livestock and agricultural produce, but a few passenger services existed; the best-known one of these was the Tasman Limited, which ran six days a week from Hobart to Launceston, Devonport and Wynyard. Here’s a quaint government promotional film circa 1955:

Unfortunately, this period coincided with the rise of private motor vehicle ownership in Tasmania, and the sealing of the state’s largely gravel-surfaced, so-called “highway” system. With a population at the time of only 300,000, and a land area the size of 68,000 km² (the area of the Republic of Ireland or West Virginia), demand proved insufficient to sustain the service, which ran for the last time on 28^th July, 1978. Some reports from the time:

There are still a few intermittent tourist trains operating in Tasmania; if you’re ever visiting I highly recommend the West Coast Wilderness Railway, which is steam-hauled with a rack-and-pinion system and runs through some of the steepest and most spectacular rainforest terrain anywhere in the world: