Hi everyone - I am a new member to this group and an Australian Bush Poet. So I thought I would share something with you all and I hope you like it.
With the closure of the last Ipswich coal mine, Jeebropilly, at the end of 2019, and the final coal train out of Jeebropilly coal loading facility at Ebenezer, 09/03/2020...Ipswich coal mining came to a end
MOVING ON DOWN THE LINE...Maureen Clifford © The #ScribblyBarkPoet
Dark brooding cloned Locos all wait in a line,
totally devoid of expression.
No features to identify them at all
that might make the slightest impression.
They wait in green paddocks with only the cows
as four legged bovine companions
and dream of stacks smoking once more as they steam
through long darkened tunnels and canyons.
Their paintwork is rusted and flaky with age,
and nowhere is there glimmer or shine
of bright polished metal. They sullenly sit
on the remnants of the railway line.
Weeds and long grass have entwined through their wheels.
It’s a picture of sad desolation
Yet these Locos were once the Kings of the rail,
hauling freight everywhere through this nation.
And now if they’re lucky they might find a place
in a park or a public domain
where children upon them can clamber and climb,
and they feel they are useful again.
But others alas are just sold off as scrap
and go into the furnaces maw
they’re melted and sold not as steam trains of old
but perhaps as a vehicle door.
Do old locos dream? Well I reckon they might,
for they must have a mighty good store
of memories to call on. Climbing a range,
outrunning a bushfire and more.
With steam whistles blowing out on country tracks,
at scrub cattle stood on the line
and hauling equipment so desperately needed
to men who were trapped in a mine.
In the dead of night passing whistlestop stations
where nary a light could be seen
and crossing the gibber plains dusty and red
where they saw not a skerrick of green.
Of passing a big mob of camels at sunset,
who ran with humps swaying about,
their feet like big dinner plates pounding the ground,
puffing dust as they galloped flat out.
They’ve seen the blue ocean, as deserts they crossed
heading west ‘cross the Nullarbor plain.
The wagons they hauled stretched for over a mile
with two locos both taking the strain.
They’ve hauled freight past Pimba and Hesso, Tarcoola,
Malbooma, Immarna and back.
The ghosts of the railwaymen long dead and gone
stood and waved as they steamed down the track.
They hauled the black gold out of Ipswich mines,
at Tivoli, Rosewood and Grandchester.
Trains are still hauling coal through Ipswich today
though diesels now suit the investor.
The night amplifies every rattle and creak,
every shudder and buffet and groan
as they head through the city there’s no white steam sound,
their whistles call shrill and alone.
Dark brooding cloned Locos all wait in a line,
totally devoid of expression
or any identifying features at all
that might make the slightest impression.
They patiently wait in sidings and sheds,
fireboxes empty, no flames glowing red.
They recall trestle bridges, the tunnels and plains -
an era that’s passed and long dead
.
