Brisbane Valley Branch

The Brisbane Valley Branch served the rural and farming districts to the west of Ipswich. The line was opened to Lowood in 1884 and then to Esk in 1886. Esk remained the terminus for the next 18 years, after which the line was further extended out to Toogoolawah in 1904. From here it was extended in stages to Yimbun, then Benarkin in 1911. It finally reached the terminus of Yarraman on 1 May 1913.

It was a busy line in its hey day but was hampered by the curvaceous nature of its construction. There was also approval to construct the missing link across to Nanango, but this was never built. By the late 80’s, freight had dwindled away to almost nothing with the lines train services ceasing in 1989. There were a number of ‘Last Runs’ including a stock train after the end of scheduled services on the branch with the very last taking place to Toogoolawah in 1992. The line is gone now, but the corridor is being progressively retained as a rail trail for recreation use.

Images by Hamish Withington, Dave Phillips and Graham Watkins adorn these pages. Where only single images exist of a particular location, they have been placed in the Bris-Valley Wayside gallery, and this included is the junction station from the main line at Wulkuraka. There is also an excellent gallery of Brisbane Valley photos by Graham Watkins in his Photo Gallery