Ballyhoo on the Bally Hooley Railway, Port Douglas

On my visit to Port Douglas I was hosted by the Bally Hooley Railway.

When visiting Cairns last year, I was unable to ride the Kuranda Scenic Railway because of cancellations due to rockslides. So I took a bus to Port Douglas to try out a substitute: the Bally Hooley Railway. 

Parked at a platform at one end of the marina’s shopping arcade was an open-sided train. Its carriages’ bright yellow wooden benches, decorative wrought-iron doors, and firetruck red roof made it look like a funfair novelty, but it had an industrial heritage. 

“The carriage beds are from real sugar cane bins,” said the young train driver wearing a baggy blue cap, referring to the carts hauled by narrow-gauge locomotives through the cane fields of the region.

These modified carriages were attached to an original loco from the cane fields, a blocky, blunt-nosed diesel workhorse that looked like it packed a lot of power for something that ran along track a mere 610 millimetres (two feet) wide. On this damp Sunday it was half-full of day-trippers waiting for it to chug down to its terminus and back, calling at three stops along the way.

The station was an attractive timber structure pained white, with a cafe serving meals at tables on the platform beneath ceiling fans and wicker light shades. Throw in a gin and tonic, and it could have been the Last Days of the Raj.

We pulled slowly out. “It averages 15 kilometres per hour,” said our guide via a microphone, providing a commentary as we progressed. As we passed the waters of the marina, he gave a sketch of the late disgraced businessman Christopher Skase, whose Sheraton Mirage Resort was largely responsible for Port Douglas’ transformation into an upmarket tourist town in the 1980s.

Then we passed the town’s waste water treatment plant, and a sign advising of a coming “sludge treatment upgrade”.

According to our host, this sugar cane line was built over a century ago to serve the sugar industry of inland Mossman, whose refinery still produced over a million tonnes of sugar per week. So Port Douglas had got its own railway eventually, even if it was for sugar rather than people.

Sugar was brought down by train to be loaded onto ships at Port Douglas, but improved road transport had made the railway redundant. Now it had become a brightly-painted tourist train, usually pulled by steam locomotives at weekends (though we’d lucked out because an accredited driver couldn’t be found that day).

Port Douglas is on a stumpy peninsula nosing into the Coral Sea, so as we moved south we could see the mountains of the Great Dividing Range across the water to our right. Closer to hand were eucalypts, and mangroves beyond them.

There were two stations between the Marina Station and the train’s terminus. The first was at the Mirage Country Club, where the railway was lined by immaculate if unused tennis courts. The second was at the QT Resort, whose long white building shared the marina’s colonial tropicana look. 

We passed older blocks of housing built by Skase for his construction workers, then arrived at the terminus, St Crispin’s Station, which housed a cafe with water views.

I stood with other rail fans to watch the crew drive the locomotive onto a turntable (see video clip above), then turn it through 180 degrees using nothing more than physical strength. It then ran past our carriages on a parallel line, to position itself for the return run north. It was a delight to watch the operation, there was something pleasingly analogue about the simple technology involved.

Back aboard, I found myself seated with new fellow passengers, an affectionate couple on a day out. 

“Pity it’s not steam today,” said the man, meaning the locomotive. I demurred, pointing out the diesel loco was just as much a part of sugar cane farming history. He didn’t seem convinced.

On the return leg, the host pointed out lipstick palms with their red trunks, and told us how expensive it was for the shire council to maintain the thousands of coconut palms in the area, which posed a potentially fatal hazard via falling fruit.

We passed more tennis courts and I noticed two of them were a dark grey.

“See that tennis court?” asked the voice. “That’s covered with algae. It’s a non-stop job keeping things clean in the Wet.”

He then detailed all the items in the 47 tons of equipment that Captain James Cook threw overboard from the Endeavour north of there in 1770, when the ship ran aground on a reef. National Geographic had led a recent expedition to recover it, and salvaged items were on display at the museum in Cooktown.

“It wasn’t until the 1960s that Port Douglas was linked to the electricity grid,” he said, moving forward in time. “Just up the road from here to the north, it’s still the same.”

He finished by detailing the recent acquisition of the marina by Syrian billionaire Ghassan Aboud, and his plans to bulldoze the current building and rebuild in an even more upmarket style, catering for super yachts (whatever they are). Port Douglas had lost some of its celebrity-fuelled glam since the global financial crisis a decade before, so this was a chance to revive it.

It was hard to imagine Port Douglas was once a serious contender for chief city of Far North Queensland, but if the Ranges railway had been built from here it would now be a glittering tropical metropolis. Instead, it had bumped along the decades as a sugar port, then a sleepy fishing village, and latterly a getaway place for the well-heeled and super-rich. 

On the way back to Cairns, I asked the bus driver if he was worried the new owner’s plans for the marina might fall over.

“Of course,” he said. “But someone has to give it a try.”

Find timetables and other info at the Bally Hooley Railway website.

Remote Access: Catching a Train from Corrour, UK

I was hosted in Scotland by Visit Scotland.

The last thing I did on my visit to Scotland last week was perhaps the most interesting. Certainly the most surreal.

I caught a train from Corrour.

This may sound like no big deal, but Corrour is not that easy to reach. Located on the edge of the sprawling Rannoch Moor in the Scottish Highlands, it's a private estate with a history of hosting visitors for hunting and fishing. In addition to enabling these activities, and providing onsite cottage accommodation, the estate also has its own mainline train station.

Corrour Station, the UK's highest mainline station at 408 metres, is not somewhere you can simply drive to. It has no public road access, so the only way to reach the station is by train (of course) from Glasgow or Fort William, or on foot. As Rannoch Moor is a starkly beautiful wilderness popular with hikers, it's a useful place to start or finish a walk.

Intriguingly, though there aren't many trains that pass each day, all of them stop at Corrour. You can even catch the Caledonian Sleeper train all the way to or from London from here, which I was intending to do the day I arrived at the station.

There's also accommodation at the station, with B&B rooms available inside the old signal box building.

The minor miracle which ties together all these uses is the Station House Restaurant. Though the station is in the middle of nowhere, its restaurant is open all day from breakfast to dinner. It's not uncommon for diners to come out on an early evening train from Fort William, have dinner then head back on the last train of the night.

I had a few hours to kill before the sleeper arrived on the way to London, so I had a late lunch at the restaurant, which has a marvellously warm and cosy interior. I could imagine it seeming an oasis to hikers on a cold day. Indeed while I was relaxing on a sofa a pair of walkers arrived who'd just trekked for some distance to meet a friend at the station, the latter arriving by train.

After lunch I donned some warm clothing (there was a chill in the air, despite it being June), and walked part of the way toward Loch Ossian, about two kilometres east of the station. At the loch there's a hostel with dormitory beds, inside a building which was once a boathouse.

It was good being out in the open. With the station's buildings hidden behind a rise, it felt properly remote, with impressive rugged hills on the horizon.

Returning to the station I whiled away a few hours reading, and chatting to the friendly staff between customers. Every table was booked for dinner that night, and as dinnertime approached there was a sudden rush of new arrivals, coming by train either from Fort William, from the adjacent accommodation, or from the hostel.

This lively group of revellers gave this unlikely remote eatery a festive mood, and I felt a bit regretful leaving them behind to walk upon the cold platform as I waited for the London train.

But then the Caledonian Sleeper arrived, I jumped aboard, and Corrour was lost to sight as we began the long haul south. Though I had a strange feeling that I would be back.

Out of Tokyo via Tobu Railway

For my visit to the Nikko region I was hosted by Tobu Railway.

I arrived in Tokyo in September by shinkansen train from Fukuoka. Then, two days later, I headed to Nikko.

The Nikko region, two hours north of the Japanese capital, is a pleasant green region known for its thermal baths. In the town of Kinugawa Onsen, where I was staying, most hotels have their own hot baths to soak in (though you can have problems getting in if you have a tattoo - more about this later).

I reached it via Tobu Railway, a private rail company which operates from Asakusa Station in Tokyo. The company runs both trains and key attractions in the region, and offers the useful Nikko Pass which combines unlimited travel with discounted admission to the local sights.

Starting at Asakusa, I boarded Tobu's ultra-modern Revaty train for the northward ride...

... and alighted at Tobu World Square Station. This is adjacent to the theme park of the same name, full of impressively detailed models of buildings from around the world. It's a lot of fun wandering around and playing the "I've been there" game:

Not far away, linked by shuttle bus, is Edo Wonderland. This is a theme park of a different stripe - a meticulous historical recreation of the Edo period of the 17th to 19th centuries, a golden age of culture for Tokyo and the surrounding region.

It's basically a living village, with working shops and cafes, and regular historical shows and processions:

On the following day I experienced another Tobu train, this one on the opposite end of the modernity spectrum: the SL Taiju steam train which first ran on the island of Hokkaido in 1941. Now it's a tourist train offering half-hour jaunts through the Nikko area:

After the train ride I visited Nikko's World Heritage area, with several historic attractions. The key sight here is the Toshogu Shrine, a beautiful Shinto shrine set within a forest:

At the end of the day I ended up at Kagoiwa Onsen, one of the few thermal baths in the region that are happy to admit people with tattoos (spoiler: I have a small tattoo of the Eye of Horus on my upper right arm).

So I sat in the hot water, and relaxed. Tomorrow it was back to the fast pace and bright lights of Tokyo. But for now, I soaked.

For more information about Tobu's passes and sightseeing in the Nikko region, visit its tourism website.

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Aerohaveno will be taking a break over the holiday season, and will be back with you in early January. Have a great New Year!

Train Stations of Canada's Jasper-Prince Rupert Line

On this trip I was hosted by the Canadian Tourism Commission, Destination British Columbia (HelloBC.com) and VIA Rail.

On my recent trip to Canada, I rode the railway from Jasper to Prince Rupert for the first time.

Though the route is lesser-known than that of The Canadian train which links Vancouver and Toronto, it's impressively scenic as it runs between several mountain ranges on its way to British Columbia's northern port.

I'll be writing about the journey in more depth for one of my outlets, so here I'm just going to focus on one element: the stations along the way.

We started at Jasper station around lunchtime on the first day. Being at the junction of two passenger routes, it's an impressive structure. It opened in 1926, replacing its predecessor which was lost in a fire the previous year.

Further along we paused at Dunster station, which opened in 1913. This is a "flag stop", which means trains don't stop here unless hailed by passengers.

It's a fine example of the standard station type which once existed along this line. Most have been demolished, but luckily locals bought this from the railway company and have restored it from a dilapidated state. So it stands as a great example of railway architecture from a century ago, and also fulfils a useful role as a general store.

Farther on, we stopped at McBride. This is another classic station, dating from 1919. As with Dunster station, it was adopted by locals and is now the home of the town's visitor information centre. I was able to hop out briefly to take a photo of this old CNR carriage standing nearby.

 

The major station on this line is at Prince George, the largest city in northern BC, where passengers spend a night before resuming the journey to Prince Rupert. No heritage building here - its relative significance means that it merits a modern concrete box:

The next day we were back on the rails, pausing briefly at the delightfully named Vanderhoof station, named after an early railway worker...

... before reaching Smithers station, opened 1918 and situated at the start of one of the most scenic stretches of the line. Babine Mountains Provincial Park is accessed from here, and the town is surrounded by four mountain ranges.

Running very late because of delays due to passing freight trains, we were able to alight for 15 minutes or so at Terrace station (while we waited for yet another freight train to go past).

An attractive timber building containing a visitor centre, this was once the family home of Terrace's founder, George Little. In 2003 it was relocated to this location and refurbished, to act as an anchor for the town's downtown heart. It was certainly the nicest station we encountered that day, especially as we had time to enter it and explore.

I'd show you the station we arrived at in Prince Rupert, which we reached over three hours late at 11.45pm, but there isn't one - instead the train drops passengers off at the BC Ferries terminal.

Near the site of the city's original station, nostalgics can visit the Kwinitsa Railway Museum. Originally a working station, it was floated down the Skeena River in 1985 to be installed here as a museum dedicated to the story of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway. Which seems fitting, as it was that railway which gave birth to the city of Prince Rupert.

As for the original Prince Rupert station which stands nearby, it's sadly now closed and boarded up. I like to feel it'll be used again one day by passengers; if only for the reason that it's in a much more convenient central location. Here's hoping!

Eastern Sleeper: Night Train from Kiev to Warsaw

I paid for my own train fare from Ukraine to Poland.

In June 2016 I caught the night train from Kiev, Ukraine to Warsaw, Poland.

This was a full overnight journey (and then some). I boarded at 16:48 at Kyiv-Passazhyrsky station and alighted at 09:10 the next morning at Warszawa Centralna.

It was what you might call old-school European train travel. I'd paid extra to have a 'single', ie the whole compartment to myself.

My bunk was in a sealed sleeper car (with no connection with the rest of the train, and no dining car). My carriage attendant was an impressively tall Ukrainian woman with no English who made me a cup of tea while I dined on sandwiches bought at the station in Kiev.

Then there were the theatrics along the way. A couple of hours waiting at the border in the dim pre-dawn light while Ukrainian border guards searched for smuggled cigarettes, and loud clanking sounds accompanied the adjustment of the train's wheels from the Ukrainian to Polish gauge. Loads of atmosphere!

Despite all this I did get some sleep, and attendant Natasha as I came to think of her (I never did get her name) happily posed for a photo on the platform at Warsaw.

I heartily recommend the Kiev-Warsaw sleeper or its shorter Krakow-Lviv counterpart if you yearn for a little of that old-fashioned night train travel with a dash of intrigue.

Here's a selection of photos I took on the journey:

 

 

As it's not possible yet to book these trains online, a reliable service I'd recommend to book these services ahead on your behalf is Polrail. Bon voyage! Or as the Ukrainians say, Щасливої подорожі!