Exploring The Mary Valley Rattler With Queensland Rail's Steam Locomotive C 17 974.

Описание: This is a video exploring the Mary Valley Rattler heritage railway located at Gympie Queensland. This video features C 17 Class steam locomotive number C 17 974 that was temporally leased by the Mary Valley Rattler from Queensland Rail to operate tourist trains between Gympie and Amamoor.

Steam locomotive C 17 974 is a C 17 class 4-8-0 type locomotive owned by Queensland Rail. The steam locomotive built by Walkers Ltd of Maryborough Queensland in 1951 with a total 227 produced between 1920 and 1953.

Gympie has a population of about 22,000 people and is located 171 km north of Brisbane on Queensland's North Coast railway. Gympie is considered the northern extent of the South East Queensland region. Gympie is also known as the town that saved Queensland due to the discovery of gold in the area in the 19th Century. Gympie is also home to the popular Mary Valley Rattler heritage train.

Gympie is serviced by both Queensland Rail long distance trains and suburban trains. The spirit of Queensland, The Spirit of the Outback and The Rockhampton/Bundaberg electric tilt trains all stop at Gympie giving around 3 long distance trains daily to Brisbane. In addition to these long distance trains there are 2 daily return suburban trains that stop at all stations in the Sunshine Coast region. Journey times to Brisbane vary from 2 hours 45 minutes to over 3 hours depending on the train type.

The main railway station for Gympie is located about 5 km north east of the town centre at Gympie North. The historic railway station in central Gympie is exclusively used by the Mary Valley Rattler as the North Coast line now bypasses Gympie.

The Mary Valley Rattler heritage railway was founded in 1998 to operate tourist trains on the now closed Mary Valley railway between Gympie and Imbil. However by 2010 the heritage railway was struggling financially and the railway infrastructure was in poor condition that culminated in a couple of serious derailments around 2012 then in 2013 the entire railway shutdown and it appeared the heritage railway was gone forever.

However in 2018 after a significant multi million dollar investment by the Gympie Regional Council the Mary Valley Rattler was reborn however on a shortened route from Gympie to Amamoor instead of Imbil due high restoration costs of the railway bridges. The current Mary Valley Rattler operates over 18 km of track between Gympie and Amamoor.

Today the Mary Valley Rattler heritage railway is very popular with a lot of tourists coming up from both the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane area to enjoy a relaxing train ride through the Mary Valley.

The Mary Valley Rattler operates steam locomotive hauled trains on Wednesday, Saturday and Sundays departing Gympie Railway Station at 10am taking around 3 to 3 and half hours for the return trip to Amamoor.

In addition to the steam trains a couple of different heritage railmotor trips operate on Thursdays and Fridays.

The Thursday trip is operated using railmotor RM 76 and is promoted as a food and wine train. RM 76 departs Gympie at 10am and takes about 3 hours for a return trip to Amamoor.

The Friday trip is operated using the silver bullet railmotors RM 2017 and RM 2023 originally this was a couple of short shuttles trips from Gympie to Monkland. However the silver bullet railmotors now operate as a high tea train and it now operates from Gympie departing at 10am to Dagun with a return journey of about 3 hours.

Overall a visit to the Mary Valley Rattler heritage railway is highly recommended and worth the journey out to Gympie to enjoy a day of relaxing heritage train travel.

For more information please visit http://www.maryvalleyrattler.com.au/

The footage in this video was produced in January 2019

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