William James Norton Smith

Extending the railway to the west coast

Introduction

In my book “Fires, Farms and Forests”, I dedicated a chapter to outline the construction of a horse-drawn wooden tramway in the mid-late 1870s. The chapter focused on the monumental task of constructing 74 kilometres of a new line through some sections of dense rainforest, all cleared by hand.

As I wrote in the book, I believe it is the longest wooden tramway built in the world.

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Australia’s Longest Wooden Tramway

Image: Wooden trestle bridge over Wey River looking north on the Emu Bay and Mount Bischoff tramway, 1878? (Source: Burnie Regional Museum)

Tasmania’s Emu Bay to Mount Bischoff horse-drawn wooden tramway – is it the longest wooden tramway ever built in Australia or indeed the British Empire?

Chapter 6 of my book ‘Fires, Farms and Forests’ goes into detail about the construction of a wooden tramway from Emu Bay to the western boundary of Surrey Hills that serviced the tin mines at Mount Bischoff.

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