Tea And Sugar Train
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- Опубликовано: 15 сен 2024
- Made by the Commonwealth Film Unit 1954. Once a week the Tea and Sugar Train leaves Port Augusta and heads west along the Nullarbor with all the supplies needed by the track maintenance workers and their families that live along the route. Everything from a needle to a radiogram from a broom to health services comes on the train they call the Tea and Sugar.
I was born on the Nullabor in 1954 at Cook, South Australia and lived in Reid, Western Australia. I remember this as a desolate place, but back in those days life although very hard was simple. I would go back there in a heartbeat had I access to a time machine and enjoy it al over again...
Wow, that's really cool, so interesting, thanks for sharing! I'm based in Perth, doing my masters of primary school teaching. Is there any chance you would be willing to share some more information, either through email or video or a phone call... I think this would be an amazing story to tell. Local history is so important and people who can tell these stories are so valuable! Let me know :) I have so many questions!
Any details or information you have about the history of these lines would be amazing to hear, or if you would point me towards more information/historical sources that would be great!
Questions like- who was working there? Mainly English people? Indigenous Australians? There's a Greek man in the video, was this common? Why did they have the train line and settlements in the first place- it seems like a bit of a waste of money and resources for so few people but perhaps there's something I'm missing!
@@ebonysmith2259 I realise I'm answering a long time after you asked this question, but here goes. A very condensed explanation is:
The railway was put there because it was the most efficient route across Australia. The men and their families were out there maintaining the railway, replacing sleepers and rails, straightening crooked track, etc. These families obviously needed supplies to live on, therefore the "tea and sugar train" went out each week. When the rail network was converted to concrete sleepers, the ongoing maintenance was greatly reduced, and so was the need for so many workers out there, so they all disappeared. These days, the maintenance is done by mobile work teams who are based in major centres such as Pt Augusta and Kalgoorlie, and stay in resthouses out along the line at Tarcoola, Barton, Cook, Rawlinna, and Zanthus, for a few days or weeks while they do the work, and then travel home again.
We lived in Zanthus in 1969/1970... a great life for a 6yo. I still have fond memories - 7 houses and a school house run by a married teacher couple who looked after us well and gave us hot milo with condensed milk in class during the colder days. Sports day was at Cook (I'll need to check that), I learned to ride a bicycle there, and learned that the tin in the dunny was changed even if you were sitting on the seat. A great life never to be re-lived. Father Christmas, the dentist van, the butcher's car, watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in the cinema car...all a distant memory. Some of these cars can be seen in the Port Adelaide train museum... a revisit is long overdue.
I love the way folks dressed back then, even in the bush..
Before the days of internet shopping hey. Wish I had a time machine chair and just rewind back through the eras to see what it was like. Amazing.
I was at Maralinga during the clean up when the last Tea & Sugar came through Watson delivering the supplies in 1996
Wow, I wonder how much you remember? Is there any chance you would be willing to share some more information, either through email or video or a phone call, I am doing my masters of primary school teaching and graduating soon, I think your experiences would be really valuable to share and hear! Local history is so important and people who can tell these stories are so valuable! Let me know :) I have so many questions!
To start with, who was working there? Mainly English people? Indigenous Australians? There's a Greek man in the video, was this common? Why did they have the train line and settlements in the first place- it seems like a bit of a waste of money and resources for so few people but perhaps there's something I'm missing!
By the time it got to 1964, the "Tea and Sugar" train also had a picture theatre car added to it. I was working at Karonie, 80 miles east of Kalgoorlie in 1964 and I saw the film "Pal Joey" in that picture theatre car. Wonderful memories.
My name is Ebony and I'm from Perth, I just think that's so interesting, thanks for sharing! Is there any chance you would be willing to share some more information, either through email or video or a phone call, I am doing my masters of primary school teaching and graduating soon, I think this would be an amazing story to tell. Local history is so important and people who can tell these stories are so valuable! Let me know :) I have so many questions!
To start with, who was working there? Mainly English people? Indigenous Australians? There's a Greek man in the video, was this common? Why did they have the train line and settlements in the first place- it seems like a bit of a waste of money and resources for so few people but perhaps there's something I'm missing!
@@ebonysmith2259 Working on the Nullarbor (Null = No, Arbor = Trees) in a line gang was a dream to make a fortune which was often not realised, but also a hiding place for those who wanted to escape from past mistakes. My father was a fettler and our family lived in Zanthus in 1969/1970. It was only a small siding for line maintenance and repairs, particularly during the hot summer months when the lines would buckle in the extreme heat. The line was made of lengths of rail that had plates to join then, making the "clickety clack" that was the romance of the rail - now replaced with continuous welded tracks and new technology that is quieter. It was a magical place to experience when I was young.
I recall that we had a man from Germany that worked there - I have no other information about him though.
I'm sure that you did get the information that you wanted for your masters. Please let me know how you went and and links that I can follow to discover more than just my experience :)
I worked in a small place called Winbring, roughly 100k's West of Tarcoola as a fettler and i remember the Tea and sugar train well.
Had to wait up all ours of the night, usually Friday and into Saturday for it to pull in to buy our groceries and get paid. The pay was not that flash considering you lived without air con, tv or telephone. Our electricity was a petrol powered generator out side with an allowance of 4 gallons per week. Everything you bought off the train came directly out of my pay, and they were more expensive than your local supermarket back in the major towns. By the time i got my pay, it was hardly worth picking up, and i can remember when i went to get paid one night, i actually owed them instead of collecting. Also a rental fee for housing came out of my pay.
The Tea and Sugar train may have been the life line for people working along the railway, but it was tough hard work in harsh conditions and virtually unrewarding money wise.
That's a great insight in to the 'other' realities of this film. Thanks for sharing your memories.
Your welcome.. there's more i can tell you, it, must have been around 1978 when i was there, just 4 houses, 2 were occupied with other families. Not much to do on weekends unless we were called out when a driver of a train reported a kink in the line some where.
Boredom played a great part, especially for my wife who had nothing to do while i was out on the line working.
Those who lived in larger settlements like Tarcoola had it much better. At least they had a pub and a public phone.
I only lasted about nine months but it was an experience my wife and i will never forget. If you didn't get on well with your co workers or their family, it wasn’t much fun. Also the heat in summer was pretty unbearable.
Also bread and mail was delivered by train as well once a week from memory, not just by the Tea and Sugar... my wife remembers too well that the train wouldn't stop to deliver the mail or bread, it was thrown from the train as it passed by and my wife who was a good catch, caught it every time.
Other things we had to get by on were, a toilet was a small shed outside with a hole in the ground.
We had a wood heater in the bathroom for hot water taking showers or baths, so chopping wood was another chore.
I can remember the Tea and Sugar train well, you could see the glow in the sky at night from the big light of the train and we thought it was close but in reality it was still hours away. Once it arrived, we had to make sure we bought enough food and other essentials to get us through to the next Friday.
Once a month a bloke would come through with a small truck or 4 wheel drive,and he would bring some movies through a projector and a small white screen, so we took it in turns to see who's house we would watch them.
They weren’t the latest movies but 2 were usually shown, the only one i can remember watching was The Magnificent Seven..a western i had seen many times before. :)
I now live in Salisbury Downs South Australia.
Amazing. These kinds of personal histories really enhance these films, which are told from a very official point of view. I think we have another short film about this train so I will look into uploading that one too. Thanks again.
I 'd just like to add something that you might find interesting.. not so much about the Tea and Sugar. But we were working on the line and stopped for lunch, we took our little car off the line because a train was due soon. So we walked away from the line and sat under a shady bush for lunch. As we were resting up and having a chat, i was scratching around in the dirt with a stick as i sat there. Then i found something shiny in the dirt, it was a 1911 threepence a small silver coin and still in reasonable condition. Where i found the coin would have been about 50 meters from the line itself. I gather the coin was dropped from the early days when the line was first put in. The coin wasn't worth much in dollars, about $2 for a collector. So i kept it and still have it somewhere.
Sounds like you might not have been the only people to have sat under that tree for lunch. I imagine shade would be a much appreciated aspect out there.
Vintage historic video, good stuff. We rode the Trans-Australia train in 1969 from Port Pirie to Kalgoorlie and I remembered calculating the average speed from the timetable at about 35mph. And then at 4:02 in the video, that's about what shows on the locomotive speedometer! Maybe a bit faster in the daytime and slower at night for the passenger train back then. A leisurely pace but better than the Nullarbor highway which wasn't all paved at that time.
Haha.... just saw this. Our family moved to Kingoonya SA in the mid 1960's. The T&S train came every Thursday afternoon I seem to remember. There were about 20 families and 1 school master. I believe we were only there for a year.
I worked in the single mans camp in Kingoonya around 1966/67. I remember the schoolmaster, cant recall if Kingoony had a pub or not. We moved to Tarcoola at some point and I remember a pub there.
"Where there are no people, you dont get epidemics"
Great video about the old days when things were simpler and less regulated, more carefree and people were less demanding and thankful for what was there on the day. Would have been better a one hour video with a few more stops along the way included. It all went down hill after Australian National was privatised, most of those little places don't exist anymore, Pacific National "downsized" Cook and ruined the town. That's progress they say...
I worked in Cook around 1990 installing the new houses, old ones were stripped down and moved to aboriginal areas by a chap, I remember the ground was very hard in places jack hammering the holes for the posts and trenches for water and electrical supply. While doing this some of the workers had been there in the 70s and 80s had some stories to tell.there was a club that opened Friday& Saturday for a few hours but used to be open a lot more back in the day. looks like most of what we build is gone now.
Thank you, for good memories of t&s at Rawlinnia
Our pleasure!
my dad work as train maintenance.. great memories !
I have quite an interest in the Tea And Sugar Train! Big write-up about it in the Basil Fuller book Nullarbor Lifelines and references in quite a few Australian Railways History books!🚇🚃🚃🚃🚃🚃🛤️🏜️🐪☕🍭🍖🥩🥓📙
great stuff, I'm in Adelaide, but I do recall those times well!
The woman sounds like Pauline Hanson. They are both stuck in 1954
AussieTV you're an idiot
Better then Labor, creating future poverty and higher prices today for working Australians by putting in a carbon tax.
Not sure about that film, there was a replacement of part of the line in 1957 I think. We have a film from 1978 called Ghan To Alice which follows passengers on that trip. Will try and find out about the earlier film you mentioned.
Sounds like the loco had a flat spot on a wheel.
The Tea And Sugar Train also provided vital services to the outback communities of the Nullarbor like food and medical services!🤨🥩🍖🍗🥓🥚🍎🍊🍅👩⚕️🚆🚃🚃🚃🚃🛤️🏜️
I worked for the coomonwealth railways in the mid 1960's at Pimba, Tarcoola, Kingoonya and several other places, back in the UK now. Been trying to find out how the railways are maintained now, do they still have gangs every few miles or so? What are their living conditions like?
Machines now pommy, they do most off the work on the weekend. They use the old sleeping cars to camp, but there usually at a main town through out the week, one gang would drop of rails etc then another gang would follow, put them in, they'd be back in the big town after a 12 hour shift. All concert sleepers now so they just mainly change the track etc. Ok pommy
Was this service cancelled by Keating or Howard?
What difference does that make?
@@TheKnobCalledTone. I’m guessing someone looking for a chip on his shoulder.