Barakula Tramway

In need of sleepers for the construction of the Great Western Railway, Queensland Railways built a tramway in 1911 to transport timber from a sleeper sawmill in the Barakula State Forest to the junction point at Chinchilla. 

The Great Western Railway required several million sleepers to complete the line, & the timber reserves of the southern Brigalow Belt were earmarked for exploitation by the Queensland Railways. Three months after the passing of the Great Western Railway Act, the Railway Department built a 25 mile (39 km) line to the sawmill at Barakula.

The branch line was referred to as a tramway, as the line was not authorised for construction as a railway by Parliament. The tramway opened in 1912 & continued supplying timber sleepers for the Queensland Railways until 1970.

The route of the Barakula tramway was based on an earlier plan to construct a railway line from Chinchilla to Taroom that was subsequently abandoned in favour of a railway line from Miles to Taroom.