Topographical survey watercolours for railway line near Einasleigh, QLD, c. 1890

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Rare colonial sketchbook leaves, illustrating a surveyors plots for a railway route through challenging terrain, with two options plotted, one in black, the other in red, two of the views showing extensive campsites with figures, horses, and covered wagons, the landscape of trees & rocks well painted by a skilled hand.

Unsigned,

one line titled ‘Einasleigh Survey’

circa 1890

frame 89x 64cm
Largest 48x 21cm
other 2 33.5x22cm

Provenance: discovered in an 1890’s Encyclopaedia, left behind in a house in melbourne when the new family moved in, Melbourne 1950’s/

 

The location of this survey appears to be somewhere along the Einasleigh / Copperfield rivers. There was a railway built through the region in 1907, servicing sparse townships and mines. The rugged ranges are the northern part of the Great Dividing Range, and the surveyed route titled ‘Einasleigh Survey’ presumably leads to the town of the same name; there is still a railway line, maintained by the Savannahlander tourist railway- a 4-day 424km line from Cairns to Forsayth. However, nowhere along this line is there a tunnel of any description. The survey seems to be the section of terrain between Einasleigh and Forsayth.

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