Railway Picnics at the Bay

Postcard photograph of railway picnic day on Esplanade, Scarness.

The Maryborough railway employees hosted picnics at Torquay and Scarness beaches for thousands of children and their parents in the late 1920s and early 1930s. All the children received free icecreams, peanuts, fruit and lollies and the parents free hot water and milk. The trains were met at the station and passengers were piped to the beach by the Pipe Band.

Families all around the district would get together on the foreshore at Torquay and Scarness for the annual railway picnic. With poor roads and very few privately owned cars, many people relied on the railway to get to the Bay. The Railway Picnics began in the late 1920s and the last steam train to The Bay was a Bush Children Heal Scheme fundraiser on Sunday, December 14th, 1969 (Melksham, 1993). Three trains ran from Maryborough, one from Bundaberg which connected with a rail motor from Childers, one from Gayndah and one from Gympie which connected with the Kingaroy train at Theebine (Maryborough Chronicle, 1949). Only the adults paid a fare which in 1969 was 50 cents (Melksham, 1993). Free tickets were given to every pupil in every school from as far away as Kingaroy and Monto (Andersen, 2017). The passenger trains would park on the Urangan Pier once the passengers alighted. Soon "the entire length of the pier was occupied by a line of passenger trains" (Andersen, 2017).The Maryborough Pipe Band known affectionately as the Kilties would meet the train and lead the passengers down to the beach.

The children would join a queue to get ice-cream, watermelon and sweets with a ticket. Cordial and hot water for tea was also supplied.

Activities included: Treasure hunts, march pasts; Belle of the Beach; sand garden, nail driving and broom throwing competitions and races for the children.

Sand Gardens,  Hervey Bay 1920s.

If you drove down you could get tickets for your children at an issuing point on the road near Susan River established by the committee (Maryborough Chronicle, 1948). These picnics were always held in October and were sponsored by The Railway Department and their employees. Raffles and donations from businesses helped raise the funds. Maryborough Chronicle, 1948 state "trains conveyed almost 6000 people to the beach, and fully seven or eight thousand travelled by motor conveyances".

Dennis Melksham (1993) remembers on the last train home "for some unknown reason the lights in the carriages didn't seem to stay on for long. Needless to say this train was always popular with the teenagers".

Do you remember the Railway Picnics?

Railway Picnic Scarness, 1960s

References:
Melksham, D (1993) Railway Picnics were big events The Chronicle, Saturday June 19th 1993.
Andersen, J (2017) Queensland Times 22nd of February 2017 All Aboard for railway picnic re-enactment.
Maryborough Chronicle 25th October, 1948 retrieved from Trove
Maryborough Chronicle 11th October, 1949 retrieved from Trove