There are no commercial passenger train services running in Tasmania and haven't been for forty years. The only way to ride the rails is on heritage services scattered over the island. The most popular of these is the West Coast Wilderness Railway (WCWR), an isolated 1067 mm service running between Queenstown and Strahan on the West Coast. Before roads reached the region rail was the only way to transport goods and people between the rugged mountainous interior and the coast. A myriad of private railway lines eventually fed into the Emu Bay Line to Burnie on the northern coast of the island. The WCWR began its operation life in 1897 as the Mount Lyell Mining and Railway Company as a tool for transporting copper from the Mount Lyell mine in Queenstown to the coastal port, closing operations in 1963. In 2002 it was brought back to life as a tourist operation. Naturally I wanted to catch it! Alex left his favourite soft toy back in the hotel in Launceston and the night befor...
The journal of a travel addict.