page_title: Cairns-to-Kuranda railway line
section_title: Kuranda railway station
hierarchical_section_title: Cairns-to-Kuranda railway line / History / Kuranda railway station
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the Kuranda Scenic Railway station at Kuranda, Far North Queensland, Australia.
context_page_description: The Cairns-to-Kuranda Railway is a heritage-listed railway line from the Cairns Region to the Shire of Mareeba, both in Queensland, Australia. It commences at Redlynch, a suburb of Cairns and travels up the Great Dividing Range to Kuranda within the Shire of Mareeba on the Atherton Tableland. It was built from 1913 to 1915 by Queensland Railways. Components of it include Stoney Creek Bridge, the Rail Bridge over Christmas Creek, Kuranda railway station, and Surprise Creek Rail Bridge. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 21 August 1992. The railway is used to operate a tourist rail service, the Kuranda Scenic Railway. It forms part of the Tablelands railway line.
context_section_description: By 1891 Kuranda Station was the most important station on the second section. It had also become a tourist destination due to its proximity to the Barron Falls. Kuranda was surveyed in 1888 in anticipation of development which would accompany the arrival of the railway and the first station buildings were relocated from Kamerunga after services to the latter location ended in 1891. The station master's house from Kamerunga was also moved to Kuranda, in 1908. By 1913 Kuranda Station included (from north-west to south-east) the office, a separate refreshment room (operated by the proprietor of the Kuranda Hotel from 1894), men's and women's toilets and a goods shed. Construction of the Chillagoe Company's private railway lines from Mareeba to Chillagoe and Forsayth, during 1898-1901 and 1907-1910 respectively, increased freight traffic through Kuranda, and tourist traffic was also increasing prior to World War I.
  A 1910 report had recommended a new station building at Kuranda on an island platform that could be made ornamental by planting trees. Vincent Price was in charge of the architectural section of the Railway Department's Chief Engineer's Office when the passenger station block, described by the Chief Engineer as "after the style of a Swiss Chalet, the idea being to make Kuranda a show station", was designed in 1911. Modified plans were drawn in 1913-14, and included the main station building (with booking lobby, booking office, waiting shed, ladies' toilets, passage, refreshment room, kitchen, pantry, scullery and kitchen yard); a signal cabin; and a utilities block (with men's toilet, porter's room, store room, and lamp room). Each of these three buildings was constructed of precast concrete units, in a Federation style with a Marseilles terracotta tile roof.
  Expansion of the station began in 1913 and continued into 1915. Changes involved the extension of the platform and yard, the signalling and interlocking of the station and the construction of a timber overbridge and new station buildings. The main station building was "nearing completion" by September 1914. Its main spaces survive, although the former refreshment room and kitchen are now the gift shop and cafe, and the former kitchen yard is now a lean-to extension.
  One of the earliest stations to be built in Australia using standard precast concrete units, Kuranda is the second oldest remaining example of its type in Queensland. Two earlier examples at Northgate (1911–12) and Chelmer (1913) in Brisbane have both been demolished, while another example opened at Ascot (Eagle Farm Racecourse) in February 1914 survives. A luggage lift from the overbridge to the platform, installed in 1915, was demolished after 1939, but a new lift with a shed at its base has been built since 1994.
  The signal cabin included a fully interlocking McKenzie and Holland 37-lever mechanical signal frame (still extant). Before railway "safeworking" systems were computerised and centralised in Queensland, mechanical signals were controlled from signal cabins, which dealt with the traffic on a particular block of railway line. Signal cabins coordinated signals that indicated whether or not a section of track was clear of other traffic. Early signals were mechanical, while later signals were operated electrically. The most common form of mechanical signal was the semaphore signal. These consisted of a metal framed tower with one or more arms that could be inclined at different angles, with the arm at the horizontal signalling "danger", or do not proceed. Examples of this form of signalling system survive at Kuranda Station. At night, lights were necessary, and kerosene lamps with movable coloured spectacles displayed different colours, including green (proceed), yellow (prepare to find next signal red), and red (stop).
  To coordinate signals so that it is impossible to give a "clear" signal to a train unless the route is actually clear, the signals could be interlocked. An interlocked yard is a railway yard where semaphore or coloured light signals are controlled in such a way that the sign
caption: Kuranda railway station, 2015
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