Picture this 1980s Aussie campground scene – snags sizzling on smoking barbeques, tents pitched shoulder to shoulder, blokes wearing stubby shorts guzzling beer from tinnies, larrikinism a-plenty, and hour after hour of roaring V8 engines on the nearby racetrack. This picture had become a common sight since motor races began happening on the Mt Panorama […]
These six wrought iron arches are disused and laying flat now but, back in the 1870s, they were part of a rail bridge that caused John Whitton a big headache. Whitton was Engineer in Chief of NSW Government Railways and was tasked with building the train line from Sydney to Bathurst. At the time, spending […]
The horses whinnied restlessly as the coachman, Jim Lowe, prepared their harnesses. Nearby, hanging at the entrance of the Cobb & Co booking office, this lantern beamed brightly like a beacon in the pre-dawn darkness. The passengers had been called for at their lodgings half an hour before – their coach was ready to make […]
This diminutive model of No. 1 steam locomotive represents a train with a very big place in history. The No. 1 locomotive was made in England by Robert Stephenson and Company and was one of four steam locomotives shipped to Australia in January 1855. Its arrival heralded the start of rail service in New South […]
When a young apprentice stepped into the railway workshop in Bathurst for the very first time, he must have been amazed at the noise and activity. During the steam era, ten tradesmen and another apprentice moved about the workshop as they manufactured and machined various components for the engines. Behind the hammering and banging of […]
While fruit farmers Mr and Mrs Somerville lobbed their tennis ball on dusty courts in the Orange region of NSW, their young son Warren waited patiently and dug around in the nearby rocky ground. Warren later confessed, ‘I found lots of strange looking rocks which I carted home, to my mother’s utter disgust… and gradually […]
Barry Purdon must have been very excited when Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh visited Bathurst on 12 February 1954. On their whirlwind tour of Australia, the royal couple visited 57 towns and cities in 58 days, but only travelled by train three times. On that momentous day, Barry was the ‘fireman’ on […]
Newspapers raved about Bathurst Station when it first opened in 1876, calling it ‘the handsomest structure of its kind on any of the lines out of Sydney.’ However, the engineer in charge of building the station, John Whitton, had cut a few corners to save costs. As he had less capital than he wanted, the […]
As demonstrated by the maker of this clock, Ernest Dunton, and his employer, Morris Blasbalk, to be a watchmaker in the late nineteenth century required more than just the skill of making and fixing clocks. Ernest John Dunton (b. 1878) was born in Wagga Wagga and completed a watchmaker apprenticeship with D. P. Symington in […]
The story of rabbits in Australia is usually related to James and Thomas Austin’s notorious success in releasing rabbits in the colony of Victoria in 1860. Earlier attempts in New South Wales had failed, but by the 1880s the rabbit population of Victoria was spreading north and starting to cause concern amongst farmers and pastoralists […]
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