You may have heard of Alpha (Queensland), but have you heard of Beta? What is their connection? Alpha and beta are the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. Is this significant?

Alpha is a small town in central Queensland, 439 kilometres (273 miles) west of Rockhampton via the Capricorn Highway. At the 2021 Australian census, Alpha’s population was 259. [1] The township was established in 1884 as a service centre for construction workers as the Central Railway from Rockhampton extended westwards. The railway played a vital role in the development of the district and over the years Alpha was well known as a railway town and railway depot.

Sadly, this is no longer the case. Today Alpha’s railway station is silent; it was last manned several years ago. Passenger trains still stop at Alpha, to take on passengers or allow them to alight, but that’s all.

A large mural covers one side of the former railway goods shed, a poignant reminder of Alpha’s buoyant railway past. The mural, entitled “A Tribute to our Railway Pioneers” was commissioned by Queensland Rail and painted by local artists. It’s the largest mural (out of 27) in Alpha, the so-called “Town of Murals”.

Today Beta is just a memory. I heard about Beta for the first time in 2017 when my husband and I visited Alpha’s Historical and Railway Museum. One of the museum’s main attractions is the “Beta Hut”, the former Beta railway station. The beautifully restored building is an integral part of the district’s railway history.

What part did Beta play in the district’s railway history? Where was Beta and what happened to it?

I grew up in Rockhampton, so I knew that Alpha is a small town in central Queensland almost directly west of Rockhampton. It was one of the towns on the Central Railway between Rockhampton and Winton. I knew the names of the main towns on this line: Emerald – Alpha – Jericho – Barcaldine – Longreach – Winton. I also knew that the central western towns of Clermont, Springsure and Blackall were connected to the Central Railway via branch lines.

During the 1960s, my father, a Rockhampton farm and produce merchant, operated a special country order service providing freight free fresh fruit and vegetables to country folk in central Queensland. The service extended to customers in the near and far west. In promoting this service, my father wrote:

For folk living in the near and far west, my father’s company dispatched orders via rail every Tuesday and Friday. On several occasions I accompanied my father when he delivered a truckload of goods to the Rockhampton railway station. Each fruit and vegetable consignment was packed in a sturdy pine crate (or two), ensuring safe and secure transport to its destination.

Clearly, in the 1960s my father’s business relied on the Central Railway (and its branch lines) to provide a prompt and efficient service to the people of the near and far west.

That was 60 years ago. How things have changed since then.

The Central Railway

The Central Railway between Rockhampton and Winton was constructed section by section between 1865 and 1928. [2, 3] The first section, from Rockhampton to Westwood, a distance of 29 miles (45 kilometres), opened in September 1867. [4] The second section, from Westwood to Gogango, opened almost seven years later, in June 1874. [5]

Thus, the work proceeded, section by section, year upon year. The line reached Longreach, 425 miles (684 kilometres) from Rockhampton, in February 1892. [6] The final section, Longreach to Winton, opened 36 years later, in September 1928. [7] Altogether, the project took 63 years to complete!

The railway from Rockhampton westwards was originally called “The Great Northern Railway” or simply “The Northern Railway”. However, in December 1878, the Queensland Government renamed it “The Central Railway” and named the Townsville to Charters Towers railway “The Northern Railway”. [8]

By the end of 1883, the Central Railway had opened to Pine Hill, 252 miles (406 kilometres) from Rockhampton. Messrs O’Rourke & Co won the tender to construct the next (seventh) section of the railway, from Pine Hill to Jericho, a distance of 53 miles (85 kilometres). [9]

Alpha and Beta

As construction of the Central Railway proceeded westwards, settlements to house and service the 200 or so construction workers and their families sprung up along the way. Alpha and Beta were two such settlements. The Railways Department drew up plans for a township at Alpha, 271.5 miles (437 kilometres) from Rockhampton, the site of the next station after Pine Hill.

The Railways Department chose the name “Alpha” after a large cattle station in the district, Alpha Station. [10] As for the name “Beta”, while some people suggested it was an aboriginal word meaning “granite”, it was most likely chosen because beta is the second letter of the Greek alphabet, after alpha. [11]

The railway line from Pine Hill to Alpha opened to the public on 22 September 1884. [12] For a little less than four months, Alpha was the terminus of the Central Railway from Rockhampton. The line from Alpha to Beta opened on 12 January 1885. [13] For the next five months, while the line between Beta and Jericho was being built, Beta was the terminus. The line from Beta to Jericho opened on 8 June 1885. [14]

Beta: The early days (1885)

The settlement at Beta peaked in numbers and notoriety during the five months it served as terminus. By the time the line from Alpha reached Beta, railway construction workers had erected a combined railway station and residence, siding and rail triangle at the site.

The railway line to Beta opened on 12 January 1885. The next day (13 January)  a telegraph station opened at the railway station. A post office opened on 1 February 1885. Mr D Ferguson was the first postmaster and telegraph station operator. On 12 June 1885, the post office moved to the railway station and Mr M Hehir, station master, took over as postmaster and telegraph station operator. [15]

For at least five months, in 1885, Beta was a hive of activity. Cobb and Co ran a passenger and mail service between Aramac and Beta, and Beta and Blackall. [16, 17] This service, which operated at Beta from a calico hut, continued until the first two months of 1886. [18]

John (Tom?) McLaughlin, licensee of the Queen’s Hotel at Pine Hill, had his hotel license moved to Beta, where he established a hotel in January 1885. [19] From all reports, the hotel McLaughlin erected at Beta was very basic, catering mainly for the local drinking public. The hotel offered meals but very limited accommodation for travellers. Writing in June 1885, one disgruntled traveller described Beta and McLaughlin’s hotel in this way [20]:

Apparently, the hotel at Beta did a roaring trade while it stayed open. But, within a year, the hotel had gone, along with most other establishments.

Many publicans and storekeepers, carriers and public servants, moved with the railway construction gangs, re-establishing their businesses and services at successive railway settlements. One commentator described the railway camp publicans and storekeepers as “birds of passage, migrating on the completion of every section and following in the wake of the [railway] contractors”. [21] It must have been profitable enough for them to do so, as it would have been costly to keep moving their goods and chattels, let alone their buildings, from one place to the next.

Beta’s swift demise (1886-1887)

Once the construction workers moved on (to Jericho), Beta’s demise was swift. The settlement had only ever been a temporary one. Just one year after the railway from Beta to Jericho opened (on 8 June 1885), very little remained at Beta. In July 1886, after passing through Beta by train enroute from Jericho to Rockhampton, one commentator made the following observations [22]:  

In 1887, as a result of lack of traffic on the Central Railway, and to cut costs, the Railways Department (Queensland Government Railways) closed three of the line’s railway stations, including Beta. The railway station at Beta, along with Beta’s railway post and telegraph office, closed at the end of May 1887. The department made further savings by reducing the number of railway employees all along the line. [23]

For Beta, closure of the railway station sounded its death knell. Beta lost its station master and its resident fettler gang. The Railways Department had the Beta station building dismantled and moved to Springsure where, in July 1887, it was re-erected as the Springsure Railway Station. [24] The Springsure branch line, from Emerald to Springsure, opened on 16 August 1887. [25]

Trains no longer come to Springsure. The section of the Emerald-Springsure line between Wurba Junction and Springsure closed 10 years ago, on 26 June 2013. When my husband and I visited Springsure in 2019, we discovered that the former Springsure railway station building was a private home. (I’ve since learnt that the building was demolished in 2020.)

Within a couple of months of the closure of Beta’s railway station, nothing remained of Beta. One railway passenger passing through Beta in August 1887 had this to say [26]:  

Despite its small size and short life, Beta played an important role on the railway between Alpha and Jericho. The reason: A well sunk to a depth of 93 feet (28 metres) revealed that Beta had an almost inexhaustible supply of first-class underground water. This water supplemented that available at Alpha. In order to supply the water to passing trains, the Railways Department erected a large 13,000 gallon (approximately 50,000 litres) corrugated iron tank and supplied the necessary pumping machinery. [27]

Following the opening of the Central Railway to Longreach in February 1892, traffic on the line picked up. The Railways Department reopened the railway station at Beta. The Beta telegraph office reopened on 30 May 1893 at the Beta railway station. [28] Around this time (I cannot find information about the building’s date of construction), Beta gained a new station building, somewhat smaller than the original one.

Soon after the railway station reopened, Beta acquired a new water tank. It was huge: 16 feet (nearly 5 metres) square by 8 feet (2.4 metres) high. It was placed on piles near the (new) Beta station building. [29] Reportedly, the new tank was a great improvement on the old one, which was about half-a-mile (0.8 kilometre) west of the station and full of holes! [30]

According to one local historian, this experimental water tank was one thing unique to the Beta siding. Beta was also unique in that it was the first main line place in Queensland where trains could pass each other, via a passing loop, without any staff in attendance. [31, 32]

From its earliest days, the Railways Department employed lengthsmen (“fettlers”) to maintain the railway tracks. It was an important job, keeping the tracks safe. The lengthsmen worked in teams, or gangs, supervised by a “ganger”. While some of these men lived in towns or settlements (like Beta), during the nineteenth century gangs were located in camps along the line, at an average of 5.5 miles (9 kilometres) apart. [33] It was not uncommon for a married man to have his wife and children living with him in these camps.

Mr H F Hardacre, MLA, Member for Leichhardt, addressing the Queensland Parliament on Friday 25 October 1895, described in detail the lot of lengthsmen working on the Central Railway [34]:

Within a decade of the reopening of the railway station at Beta, in 1903, the Postmaster General’s Department reopened the Beta post office. [35] As before, it was located at the railway station. In 1912, the (Queensland) Government Savings Bank opened a branch (at the Beta post office). [36] The post office at Beta remained open for the next 70 years, until 20 January 1973, when it closed for the second (and final) time. [37]

Over the years after the railway station (“siding”) at Beta reopened in 1893, a small community came together at Beta. Local residents included Railways Department employees, graziers, farmers, selectors and their respective families. A listing for “Beta” appeared in Pugh’s Almanac for the first time in 1915. [38]

In 1908, Beta made the state and national news, but for all the wrong reasons. On 27 July 1908, a 14-year-old girl died suddenly in a lengthsman’s cottage at Beta. It appeared she had been poisoned. The girl, Sarah (“Dolly”) Chalkley, lived at Beta with her grandparents, John and Sarah Willows. Mr Willows was a ganger stationed at Beta. A police investigation and magisterial inquiry into the cause of death confirmed that Miss Chalkley died as a result of cyanide poisoning. It also found that Miss Chalkley was pregnant. Despite the suspicious circumstances surrounding the death, no charges were ever laid. [39, 40, 41]

The Beta railway site included the station building, several railway houses and a goods shed. Local activity had picked up to the extent that, in 1911, district residents petitioned the Railways Department for a larger goods shed, to handle the quantity of goods exchanged at the station. [42] In December 1922, the (new?) goods shed at Beta doubled as a polling place for the Commonwealth of Australia elections. [43]

The years passed.

Station masters, gangers, lengthsmen and men in charge of the pumping engine, came and went. Sadly, in 1952, a lengthsman died at Beta as the result of an accidental shooting [44]:

One woman, responding to a 2018 post about Alpha and Beta on my Facebook page, recalled living at Beta as a child. She and her family lived in one of the lengthsmen’s cottages. She wrote:

The railway station at Beta was manned until 1982. [45] Actually, the last person in charge of the railway station at Beta was a woman. Elsie Hansen was station mistress at Beta from 1971 until the station’s closure in 1982. Elsie’s husband (“Nugget”), a ganger, worked at Beta as well, until his untimely death in 1977.

Several respondents to my 2018 Facebook post about Alpha and Beta remembered Elsie Hansen and shared memories of their visits to Beta. Elsie’s daughter Rhonda wrote: “My Mother was the last station mistress at Beta. Her grandchildren loved visiting her, doing all the things that bush kids do.” Another person wrote, “I remember it so well!! And swimming in the water tank!!” According to Rhonda, for the last five years of her tenure, Elsie Hansen lived alone at Beta. Besides her residence, only a couple of fettler houses remained.

The closure of the Beta railway station in 1982, nearly 90 years after its reopening, spelt the end for Beta. Queensland Railways sold all its buildings at Beta, bar the station building, and they were removed. [46] Despite offers to buy the station building, the Railways Department refused to sell it, instead allowing itinerant railway employees to use it as a place to stay when working in the district. [47] Unfortunately, when not in use, the building became the target of vandals. [48]

For several years after the closure of the Beta siding, the Alpha and District Historical Society sought to purchase the former Beta railway station. In a letter to the General Manager, Railways Department, Central Division (Rockhampton), dated 21 January 1985, Mrs Alice McLaughlin, President of the society wrote [49]:

Two years passed. By 1987, the society had gained the support of the Jericho Shire Council in seeking to acquire the building. As part of the shire’s contribution to Australia’s bicentenary year (1988), the Council joined the society in lobbying Queensland Railways for the Beta station building. [50] The society planned to make the building a feature of Alpha’s proposed historical and railway museum. Finally, the Railways Department agreed, and gifted the building to the society. No money changed hands. The society moved the building from Beta to Alpha during the week ending 24 January 1988.

The railway settlement at Alpha did not suffer the same fate as Beta. By 1894, ten years after the opening of the Central Railway line between Pine Hill and Alpha, the town boasted a combined telegraph and post office (opened in 1884 at the railway station), a police officer, racing club, provisional school (Alpha State School opened on 7 September 1894), three hotels, three sawmills, and many other businesses and trades. [51] For the first time, Alpha had an entry in Pugh’s Queensland almanac, directory and law calendar:

By 1899, 15 years after the opening of the railway, Alpha was already serving as a maintenance and repair depot for trains on the Central Railway. One commentator wrote [52]:

By 1899, the town of Alpha showed steady growth. The town’s listing in Pugh’s Queensland almanac, directory and law calendar for 1899, when compared with that for 1894 (see before), provides proof of that growth:

At the 1901 Australian census, Alpha had a population of 469. [53]

Over the ensuing decades, Alpha maintained its importance as a depot on the Central Railway. The town’s population, which peaked in the 1950s and 1960s, depended very much on Alpha’s connection to the railway. In the early 1960s, with the introduction of diesel engines on the line, the Railways Department upgraded the facilities at Alpha so diesel electric servicing could be carried out there. Alpha continued to be a busy depot and servicing centre through the 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s. [54]

Commencing in the mid-1980s, Queensland Railways (Central Region) reorganised the management of its workshops and diesel sheds. As a result, in 1990, Alpha’s diesel shed closed. The shed was demolished in 2003. [55] Certainly, this was the end of an era for Alpha, known far and wide as a “railway town”.

Today, a former railway building is the home of Alpha’s Tourist Information Centre. The building, formerly the shunters’ tearoom and locker room for railway drivers, firemen and guards, was moved from the railway station to its present site in Shakespeare Street for its repurposing. [56]  The so-called Rowley Roberts Tourist Information Centre is named after former Jericho Shire Council member, Councillor Rowley Roberts, who served on the council from March 1885 until March 2004. [57] Cr Roberts opened the centre on 22 April 2001.  

I commend the Alpha District Tourist and Development Association and the Alpha and District Historical Society for their work in establishing and maintaining the Rowley Roberts Tourist Information Centre and the Alpha Historical and Railway Museum. Given the small population of Alpha and district, what these two groups have achieved is quite remarkable.

In particular, I commend the members of these two groups for their work in documenting and displaying the district’s railway history. The railway played such an important part in the life of Alpha and district that its story should be told and re-told and never forgotten.

If I had not come across the “Beta Hut”, I would not have known about Beta, and this story would not have been written. It is my hope that this story helps a little in keeping Beta’s memory alive.

What else can be done to help us remember places like Beta?

I have a suggestion. When my husband and I travelled through South Australia last year, we noted numerous signposts along the highways, each one bearing the name of a former settlement and the date it was established. We found this incredibly helpful and informative. Perhaps the Barcaldine Regional Council (locally) and the Queensland Government (state-wide) could follow suit.

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