Help by Rail

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

A Rail Ambulance is a vehicle used for medical transportation services on railway lines. The first rail ambulance in Queensland, Australia was introduced in 1918, with the last withdrawn from service around 1990. It was usually a specially equipped petrol engined rail inspection trolley, funded by a local community, with a railway employee volunteering to drive it when necessary.

Queensland is a vast, relatively unpopulated area, where providing services to remote communities in a cost effective way has been a continual challenge. Railways were built from 1865, and in many areas provided the major form of transport until a significant road improvement program was commenced by the Queensland government from the 1960s.

It was in this context that the mining community of Blair Athol introduced the first rail ambulance in 1918, in order to enable injured people to be transported to the nearest hospital at Clermont.

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Ravenshoe Ambulance Centre, est 1918

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The traditional owners of the land in the Ravenshoe district are the Jirrbal people who speak a dialect of the Dyirbal language. The site of the present day Ravenshoe was first settled by pastoralists prior to 1881 but when stands of red cedar (Toona ciliata) trees were found at nearby Cedar Creek, the mining entrepreneur, John Moffat purchased the pastoral properties in 1897. A village called Cedar Creek was established. By 1910, the nearby mining town of Herberton has been connected by railway to Cairns and Cedar Creek had been renamed Ravenshoe.

The name is supposed to have been chosen because a copy of Henry Kingsley’s novel Ravenshoe was found discarded nearby

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QATB Bundaberg

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The Brisbane Courier
Tuesday 4 July 1916

Shooting Accident Near Bundaberg

Arthur Loeskow, the eight year old son of Mr and Mrs Loeskow, of Bororen, was the victim of a serious shooting accident to-day (our Bundaberg correspondent advised last night). It appears that while out duck shooting with some mates a shot gun carried by one of the boys was accidentally discharged, and Loeskow, who was standing some distance away, received the whole charge in his shoulder and head.

The boy was able to proceed home and appraise his mother of the occurence. He was brought to Bundaberg by the mail train to-night, and conveyed to a private hospital by the Ambulance Brigade. Efforts were made at the hospital to locate and extract the pellets, and to-night the boy was reported to be doing as well as could be expected.

Queensland State Archives Item ID 436385, Photographic material

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QATB Brigade Headquarters. Park Street, Boonah, 1928

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The Brisbane Courier
27 Feb 1930

Boonah

Accident – Aubrey Webb (14 years), residing at Dugandan, fell from a tree in the school grounds and fractured his left forearm. The Boonah Amulance rendered first aid and conveyed the patient to Dr. W. A. Fraser’s surgery.

Queensland State Archives Item ID 436385, Photographic material

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Beware the "honk machines" … QATB Babinda Centre 1949

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Cairns Post
Friday 31 Dec 1920

Babinda Notes

[…]

Our roads and bridges in particular have been receiving some comment of late, and are (the bridges) being designated as veritable death traps, but all the same, wind explosions, or pen efforts, will not alter the pace of the owners of honk machines who smillingly negotiate the said death traps at racing speed. Posts and wires were securely placed on all these bridges, but had to be removed owing to the formidable amount of debris and logs that are carried along by the flood waters, and find resting places against the many bridges that span those streams.

The Babinda structure receives an unusual amount of timber, and on several occasions the chance of its demolition seemed a sure thing. All measures and precautions may be made for the prevention of accidents, but the fact remains that accidents will occur and at

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QATB Clermont Centre

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

The Capricornian
Sat 6 Nov 1897

The Accident at Clermont
Full Details

One of the saddest accidents that has occurred in the history of modern Clermont happened last night at the Town Hall, says the Peak Downs Telegram of the 29th October. The Quadrille Assembly had arranged to hold its last night of the season, which had been a very successful one. Everything was provided, therefore, to make the wind-up of the season a brilliant success.

At half-past eight there was a rush to the gallery; before a quarter to nine that gallery was down on the floor of the hall, its timbers shivered as though it had been built of match-box wood – a very wreck. It was a flimsy structure, to say the least of it, and how it has carried the crowds of people we have seen in it we do not know. But it

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Innisfail QATB

Queensland State Archives posted a photo:

Cairns Post
Mon 15 April 1929

Innisfail and District Accidents

Our Innisfail correspondent states that John Liles, aged 19, met with a perculiar accident. He is a labourer out of work and resides at Goondi Bend. Liles was tying up a cow when the animal pulled away from him and he received a lacerated wound on the right hand through being cut with a piece of tin. The ambulance gave first-aid treatment and then conveyed the sufferer to the hospital.

Edward Crampton, aged 45, a butcher working for Trembath Bros. also met with an accident under perculiar circumstances. He was cutting up meat when another employee spoke to him. Crampton turned around and in doing so the knife slipped and severed the radial artery of the left wrist. First aid was given by the Ambulance and the sufferer taken to a doctor, thence to a private hospital.

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