The West Coast Wilderness Railway is a reconstruction of the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company railway in Tasmania between Queenstown and Regatta Point, Strahan. The railway is significant because of its Abt rack system to conquer the mountainous terrain through rainforest, with original locomotives still operating on the railway today.
The railway utilised the Abt rack and pinion system for steep sections. Because of the gradients, tonnages were always limited on the railway. The gauge is 3 ft 6 in
The steepest gradient on the rack section was 1 in 12 (8.33%). The line includes the steepest gradient climbed by a regular train in the Southern Hemisphere, between Dubbil Barril and Rinadeena
The enthusiasts lavish so much love on these locomotives. We are lucky to have a couple of steam railways fairly close by for visitors/tourists rather than commercial.
There really is something about steam trains - they're almost alive as they puff and huff. Thank you all for your thoughts, favs and comments . I really appreciated reading them all and seeing how a love of these machines is so wide spread. Cheers Rob
The engineers who designed this back then were amazing!
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