"God! I will pack and take a train,
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And get me to Mount Isa again!
For The Isa's one town, I know,
Where men are men and women go!"
(With apologies to The Old Vicarage, Grantchester - 1915).
Or so it could have been believed, when on April 6, 1929, the first iron horse Progress and Prosper rolled into Mount Isa railway station, for women made up nearly half of the passengers on board; women of all ages including six-week-old Edna Leahy.
And waiting excitedly in front of the new Mount Isa railway station were two young local girls, Annie Glendenning and Venetia Holley, dressed in the finest frocks, who were given the great privilege of holding onto the tape which was strung across the rail lines.
Slowly and assuredly the inaugural train with Queensland attorney-general John Mullan at the train controls slowly rolled alongside the railway station and broke the girls' tape.
A symbol that the Cloncurry - The Duchess - Mount Isa railway was officially opened. And it was a given that unless men were working underground on the day, they were expected to wait in anticipation and gaze in awe as the iron horse rolled into town for the first time.
Following this auspicious occasion, there was no holding back the development of Mount Isa Mine nor the township as hundreds of trains and carriages would haul mineral ore, cattle, building materials, food supplies and general freight not to mention the transfer of passengers to and from the eastern coast.
Although the estimated cost of laying the rail line was recorded at £6000 per mile (or £360,000 in total) the ultimate cost rose to £538,000 which proved the incompetence of the Royal Commission which accepted the lower per mile estimation through The Duchess.
Mount Isa Mine demanded a railway at any price and it was that determination which often endangered the life of the mine in years to come as the company continued to pay for the railway negotiations of 1925.
Such a promise saw the company reimburse the Queensland Government for money the railway was deemed to have lost. And for the next seven decades, the company regularly sought freight concessions from the state government only to be refused with the excuse that the railway was born of the corruption of the previous ministry.
WH Corbould's belief in the viability of Mount Isa Mines never wavered although it was surely tested and with his piercing blue eyes, he was always on alert for any detail that might deter his convictions. On one occasion, AP Beard (Nene) the sole clerk, accountant, paymaster, typist, all rolled into one, was admonished for leaving the freight book on his desk.
"Hide it," Corbould ordered, "lock it away."
This outburst was a result of Corbould having earlier told visitors that, railway freights were not heavy. WH Corbould was a hard man and a determined one; he would rail his ore mineral to the eastern coast at any cost.
Ninety years later the era of the iron horses steaming through the isolated Argylla and Selwyn Ranges and the spinifex strewn plains to Cloncurry and onto the eastern coast continues albeit without the dust, soot and cinders. Long gone are the primitive facilities of timber stations with plank platforms, overhanging trees and water tanks with wide funnels to fill the steam engine boilers.
And with time, nostalgia often softens the austere reality of train passengers' experience of their journey to the eastern coast.
The early carriages did not have connecting corridors and with the wooden seats so uncomfortable passengers would alight and stretch their legs at every train 'watering' stop.
In winter, they shivered as cold winds whistled through the window joints while in the searing heat of the western summers, they had to choose between an open or closed window.
Open a window and the noise of the rolling clunk, clunk of the rail wheels chugging along the rails would drown out any conversation while they were being half blinded by the dust, soot and cinders from the locomotive.
Alternatively, they could close the windows and stifle in the airless carriages; it was a hard trip at any time of the year.
Nonetheless, the opening of the new railway between The Duchess and Mount Isa gave people a more convenient form of travel, even for a baby.
Today, Edna Charles (formerly Johnson nee Leahy) fondly recalls tales told by her mother and siblings of joining the inaugural train journey when she was a baby.
"I've lived in the district for most of my life and I'm proud to tell people that I was on the first train to Mount Isa ... who else can say they are the same age as our railway?"
And she agrees, that it is to WH Corbould who never doubted the richness of the Mount Isa mineral fields, who fought for his beliefs and his determination to secure a railway line for the advancement of the mine, that we owe an indelible gratitude.
From the colloquially named 'brown rattlers' (passenger carriages) which tagged along at the end of the ore trains through to the introduction of air conditioned comfort of the passenger specific inlander, rail proved to be a popular mode of transport and travel which ever era.
And for 90 years, the railway and its iron horses, through its many guises, has been Edna Charles preferred transport of choice, just as it continues to be for the company to move their mineral products from Mount Isa to Townsville.
An old advertising slogan said it all - Let the train take the strain.
Researched and written by Kim-Maree Burton www.kimmareeburton.com. Photographs supplied by MIMAG and Roger Hancock Collection of historical photos. Information sourced from Cloncurry Advocate, Mt Isa Mail, MIMAG and the North West Star together with interviews with Edna Charles (formerly Johnson, nee Leahy).