Queensland (highlighted in red on the Australian map shown), is often referred to as Australia's "Sunshine State", is Australia's second largest state and takes up the whole North-Eastern quarter of the Australian continent. With half the state North of the Tropic of Capricorn, summers are usually very hot, wet and humid along the coast. However, inland to the West of the Great Dividing Range the extensive and arid interior can see many years pass between rainfalls!

With over 7,400 km of coast line and an area of 1,722,000 km2 Queensland is vast! Being the most decentralised of the Australian states it has a relatively small population of just over 4.5 million people. Half this population is scattered, mainly along the East coast, in many small towns and cities of various sizes with the other half living in the South-East corner of the state where the capital city of Queensland, Brisbane (population just over 2 million), is located. It was just to the South-West of Brisbane in the industrial city of Ipswich, once known for its, coal mines, woollen mills and extensive railway workshops, that the story of Queensland's Railways began.

It was from Ipswich, on the 31st July 1865, that Queensland's first railway line was completed to Bigges Camp, now known as Grandchester, a still tiny township a mere 38km to the west of Ipswich. Within two years, the line had been extended further west, up The Great Dividing Range to Toowoomba, capital of the rich Darling Downs agricultural region.

Once ridiculed for running 3'6 (1067mm) narrow gauge line, by its neighbouring states to the south running standard and broad gauge line, Queensland's rail network is presently, by far, the largest rail network in Australia! According to QR's 2009/2010 Annual Report QR's network of in use track throughout Queensland consisted of 7,837km of 3' 6" (1067mm) gauge track, 3kms of Standard gauge track and 36kms of dual gauge track.

QR's 2009/2010 Annual Report also stated that it hauled, 262.2 million tonnes of freight with coal haulage accounting for around 198.4 million tonnes while other minerals and general freight accounted for 63.8 million tonnes with total passenger trips by QR Citytrain (Brisbane's suburban network) and Traveltrain coming in at just over 60.5 million people. During this period QR operated 703 locomotives, 8993 coal wagons, 7153 mineral and freight wagons and 779 passenger vehicles giving QR an operational revenue for the period of $2,865.9 million.

On the 1st July 2010 QR split into two new companies, QR National and Queensland Rail. QR National became a public company concerned with freight haulage (particularly coal) not only in Queensland but Australia wide, while Queensland Rail remained in the hands of the Queensland Government as Queensland's passenger rail service. QR National remains Australia's biggest hauler of coal and freight and with Queensland Rail remains the biggest rail operator in Queensland. The next biggest operater in Queensland, Pacific National, continues to run intermodal freight trains as well as coal trains on the Blackwater and Goonyella systems. Airtrain, the only other private operator running revenue services on Queensland's rail network, runs trains to and from Brisbane Airport, using Queensland Rail owned suburban units. Also, throughout Queensland, are a number of heritage railways and museums run by various organisations promoting the rich heritage of railways in Queensland. (See my links page for information on all the above mentioned organisations).