Mount Cuthbert and Dobbyn railway lines

Mount Cuthbert and Dobbyn Branch Railways. World War 1 made copper an important resource and large deposits were located at Mount Cuthbert about 130 kilometres to the north of Cloncurry, Queensland. Cloncurry was named by the explorer Robert O'Hara Burke after Lady Cloncurry an Irish friend. Parliament had approved a 68 kilometre branch railway from Cloncurry in late 1911, but construction did not commence until late 1912 and the line did not open until 16 November 1914. Koolamarra (formerly Longamundi) was then the terminus.

Completion of the line to Mount Cuthbert became urgent but it was 1 September 1916 before it officially opened. En route it passed through Kajabbi (apparently derived from an Aboriginal word indicating a kite hawk) and Oona (formerly Kalkadoon). Rail traffic was brisk in that firewood was conveyed to Mount Cuthbert to fuel smelters and copper was railed east to the Queensland coast.

Further mines were located a short distance to the north-east of Mount Cuthbert around Dobbyn. A 33 kilometre extension from Oona to Dobbyn opened on 21 May 1917 so that additional copper could be accessed. Spur lines were built to the Orphan and Excelsior mines.

Dobbyn was the railhead for Burketown several hundred kilometres to the north near the Gulf of Carpentaria. An approved 80 kilometre extension towards Burketown did not eventuate. A weekly train service sufficed after copper prices slumped in the 1920s. The Oona to Mount Cuthbert section closed on 8 December 1949 and the Kajabbi to Dobbyn section closed on 1 July 1961.

Beef cattle were railed from Kajabbi and Koolamarra to Cloncurry but, as road transport gradually took over, that service ceased in the late 1980s. The line officially closed on 1 January 1994.

References

Queensland Place Names, Department of Environment & Resource Management

"Triumph of Narrow Gauge: A History of Queensland Railways" by John Kerr 1990 Boolarong Press, Brisbane