Yvonne: I started at Richmond Rural School in 1939 previously I started traveling on Pansy in 1936 for music lessons The Train consisted of one engine and two carriages but come holiday time they put 6 carriages on.
It traveled across East Market Street around the Park then along March Street, After the train left the North Richmond Bridge it veered right to travel beyond where Hanna Match is now following the entrance to the new Park there now. It crossed the main road where the North Richmond lights are then disappeared up into the paddocks.
The Stations were Phillip at the bridge on the Richmond side, North Richmond Station was about were the Shell Garage is now then Red Cutting, in Yeoman's Paddock then Kemsleys, up along Redbank Creek Road where you come up the gully. Thompsons Ridge opposite Abram Creek School, Duffy's was bit further on.
The only actual stations were at Phillip, Nth Richmond, Kemsleys, and Thompson's Ridge anywhere else the put the ladder down. Also they would stop anywhere, if you missed the train for school the train would stop and put the ladder down anywhere even in March Street.
The Engine was a small old engine with a number starting with 20 the coal was carried on the engine itself.
David: I traveled to high school at Parramatta on the train. In 1933 I caught the train after riding my pony over from Hermitage Road where we lived. I put the horse in The Station- Master's Paddock and caught the 20 past 6 train in the morning. I again caught the 20 past 6 train from Parramatta it arrived at Kurrajong at 10 to 8.
That was the first train after school, the trip took ½ hour from Richmond to Kurrajong, it was slow when you are stopping at all the little stops. There were not many vehicles it those days we knew all the people with cars there were only 4 cars in Kurrajong back then we could say there goes Les Peck, there's Len Brock or there's Cyril Poole.
The station at Kurrajong is where the big Prospect (now Intragel Energy) Substation is now. You can still see the entrance to the station; it's still the entrance to the Substation.
The railway carried a lot of fruit and vegetables in covered wagons in one or two goods carriages on behind the passenger's carriage. What happened near the end was, there was a lot of trucks carrying the vegetables saving people like Yvonne's Uncle the traveling to the station or carrying the stuff to Richmond.
There was a couple of wash-a-ways through floods in Peels Paddock where there were some big dams. The dams gave away during flood times and took the railway line with it. They fixed the line a couple of times to my knowledge but in the end they said the line wasn't paying.
There was a pretty big protest meeting when the government announced the lines closure, but you know once the government announces something that's it. I often think that it would be such a novelty today it's a shame it ever closed. The line used to come past Redbank Creek Road then the school past the Kyper school the train used to come up there and then swerve around then go into the bush to Duffys and Nurri. There was a bloke named Cleggy who used to wave from the verandah there. It gave a good ride plenty of soot and rickerty rick (swaying motion), if you were meeting anyone at Kurrajong you would stand on the station there and hear the Pansy's whistle blowing and the smoke blowing as it came up the hills through the bush. It was an institution then.
Kurrajong was a very big holiday place in its day. In Pansy's heyday there were guest houses everywhere, we were only thinking about it and were counting up the guest houses there must have been 20 or 30 of them. Scattered along Comleroy Road up to Kurrajong and Kurrajong Heights and back to Kurmond. As I said before they would put 6 carriages and I think another engine behind, to help in holiday times to get those carriages up because it was a climb to Kurrajong. Taxis would then take the people distributing them to the various guesthouses. There were two or three taxis in Kurrajong. Kurrajong was very popular for holidays, honeymoons and those types of things.
When I joined the army in 1941, I was given a send off on Kurrajong Station they always did that for everybody. When I came home I came overland from Melbourne there were a lot of people there to meet me, I couldn't talk I had laryngitis.
The railway severed a great purpose when it first started my (Yvonne's) grandfather was one of those who helped get it started. He told me it was for carrying fruit and vegetables and it grew from that. Then they realised that it would carry passengers.
The carriages were open right through and had the roll back type seats that you could roll over to face the direction you were going or what way you wanted. There were racks up the top to carry your luggage, I think towards the end they even had a toilet on some of the carriages, it was very modern then. The main ones I remember were from my school days that were the ones I described to you. You see I lived up on the heights and it was nothing for me to ride my bike into Richmond but in the afternoon I would put my bike on the train for the ride home back to Kurrajong. I remember there was a landing out through the door on the edge of the landing there was a chain that stopped you from falling off I suppose but I used to chain my bike to that, a lot of kids did that.
There was always a guard on it I think his name was Tiger Kelly we always got to know the guards but not the engine drivers there was another chap as well a rather plumb chap I can't recall his name. They wore a normal railway uniform you know a waistcoat and cap he lived in Richmond. We knew the last StationMaster at Kurrajong Frank Brown and Roy Reverger was the assistant. He lived in the station masters house in Kurrajong they have done the house up now. At the station at Kurrajong they had a Station Master and a Porter.
There were no bunkering facilities at Kurrajong you couldn't turn the engine around they used to put the engine onto the other end of the train and it would back down to Richmond. They had a double rain with points at Kurrajong to allow the engine to pass and go to the other end.
The trip cost 2/- for a weekly ticket that was when I (Yvonne) started to work. We used to get a railway pass for school.
When I (David) used to come into Richmond on the train for a haircut at Ken Sly's I remember it used to cost 9d he used to send out for morning tea for me that used to cost 1/3d so he never made anything on the haircut. The whole trip to Sydney was about 3/- or 4/- I think.
One criticism a lot of people voiced just before it closed was the siting of the line they should have built it on the road it would have served a lot more people. You had to go into the bush to catch it. It looks like they took the shortest distance from North Richmond up the hill, I suppose the road is so steep that they took an easier way.
There were no buses until Jim and Roly MacMahon started one just after the war. They used to pick up people on the main road and take them to North Richmond Station. They ran their buses from Kurrajong to North Richmond. When the line started there were only horse and sulkys. There service was a bit laid back, it used to leave Richmond at the right time but if it was late into Kurrajong or was delayed leaving it would make up time on the downhill run to Richmond even if it was ten minutes late leaving. Once I (Yvonne) remember missing the train and running beside it, they stopped and I climbed up the ladder.
I (David) can't remember to many people getting on at Redcutting, all the station consisted of was a post with Redcutting on it. It was just where the farmer's track in hit the railway line. During the whole time I traveled on it I can only remember it stopping at Redcutting a couple of times. The station at Kemsleys consisted of 4 posts in the ground with some railway sleepers on them. Nurri and Thompsons Ridge were the same as Redcutting just signs on posts.
You know the where the overhead bridge just before the Hawkesbury River goes across the road now (on the Richmond side) that was where the little railway station at Phillip was just before the river. That bridge was so the farmers could get from the southern side to the northern side of the line. There was a gravel crushing plant just before the river on the Richmond side.
If you caught the 11 o'clock train from Kurrajong it was the worst train to get because they would shut there for half an hour because they didn't have to connect up with a Sydney train. They'd shunt and they'd yarn, then shunt again back and forth, loading another load of gravel trucks on then they'd pull them to Richmond.
The train left Kurrajong at 20 past 6in the morning then 10 to 8 and 11 o'clock then left at 2 o'clock and came back getting into Kurrajong at 3.30pm then you'd get the school train at 10 to 5 and then at 8 o'clock at night. Pansy made about 6 or 7 trips a day. It was fairly well patronised until just after the war when cars and buses started up. The StationMaster was transferred to Seven Hills and they just had the porter left.
Three big wash-a-ways happened three years running on the line during very wet times. 1949 was a very wet year in the Hawkesbury, the water went over the bridge 9 out of 10 weekends at one time. So you can imagine how wet the country was no one could get anywhere, the train just stopped running.
May 1999
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