Signals, Crane and Subway, Charters Towers Railway Station
| Signals, Crane and Subway, Charters Towers railway station | |
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Semaphore signal, south-west of Millchester Road, 2006
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| Location | Enterprise Road, Charters Towers, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia |
| Coordinates | 20°04′36″S 146°16′17″E / 20.0768°S 146.2714°ECoordinates: 20°04′36″S 146°16′17″E / 20.0768°S 146.2714°E |
| Official name: Signals, Crane and Subway, Charters Towers Railway Station | |
| Type | state heritage (built) |
| Designated | 30 October 2008 |
| Reference no. | 602627 |
| Significant period | 1890s |
 Location of Signals, Crane and Subway, Charters Towers railway station in Queensland
Location of Signals, Crane and Subway, Charters Towers railway station in Queensland
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The Signals, Crane and Subway are heritage-listed railway infrastructure at Charters Towers railway station, Enterprise Road, Charters Towers, Charters Towers Region, Queensland, Australia. They were added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 30 October 2008.
The Charters Towers railway station was established in 1882 as the terminus of the Great Northern railway from the port of Townsville to the high-yielding Charters Towers Gold Field (proclaimed in 1871). Although the early buildings on the site have been replaced by late twentieth century structures, the railway yards retain three elements important in illustrating the functioning of this place as the transportation hub of what was Queensland's largest and wealthiest gold-mining town at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: a rare surviving operational mechanical safety system for managing railway traffic; an uncommon 1890 pedestrian underpass; and a large 10-ton crane (c. 1900) also now considered to be rare.
Surveying for a railway inland from Townsville to Charters Towers began in 1875; construction commenced in 1879; and the line to Charters Towers was opened on 4 December 1882. Subsequently extended, the line reached Hughenden in 1887, Cloncurry in 1907, and Mount Isa in 1929. A south-west extension from Hughenden reached Winton in 1899.
The railway to Charters Towers boosted the town's prosperity by lowering the cost of supplies and building materials. Branch lines and sidings radiated out from the railway station to the various gold mines around the municipality, which boomed during the 1880s. Charters Towers continued to prosper throughout the depressed economic conditions of the 1890s with a peak production of 319,572 ounces of gold in 1899, and a population of around 26,500 the same year. After 1899 there was a steady decline in gold production. In 1912 the Warden reported that the extreme depth for profitable mining had been reached, and most mines had been abandoned by 1916. The last of the big mines, the Brilliant Extended, closed in 1917, but small mining operations continued to be serviced by the Venus battery, which was owned by the Queensland government from 1919. By 1921 Charters Towers' population had decreased to 5,682.
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