wulkuraka

when we moved to emerald hill, or even before we officially moved, one of the first things i did was check on google maps to see just how close we were to the train line, and see which station was the closest to our house. geographically speaking, that station is wulkuraka, a name that screams 'in the middle of no where' which i suppose it sort of is. the wulkuraka station lies between the thomas street station to the east and the karrabin station to the west, both on the rosewood line.

the funny thing about the wulkuraka station is that as yet i havent caught a train from there! while it is geographically close to the house, it is actually not as practical, simply because the roads do not go directly to the station, you sort of have to back track a bit, which is a pain. another disadvantage, is the fact that once you get to the ipswich station, you have to change trains to the rosewood line if you want to continue to head west. the rosewood train does not run as frequently as the ipswich train, and so you would have to wait at ipswich station for a rosewood connection train to be able to go to wulkuraka, and the same goes for the inbound travel, catch an ipswich train then change trains for a brisbane city and (either) a bowen hills or caboolture train. it makes smaller stations like wulkuraka impractical, which is a real shame.

i am determined to catch a train from ipswich to rosewood in the future, and stop at all the stations for a few photos for this blog, and do some exploring while i wait for another (sadly infrequent) train to come along and take me to the next station. in the mean time, these shots of a trainless platform will have to suffice for my tribute to the station closest to my house, which i have yet to use. if you click on the photos, they will enlarge to the full size.

this is a shot from the rosewood side of the platform looking across to the ipswich side. it is quite a peaceful little station. sadly no train went through for me to photograph during this particular visit.

here i have a photo looking westbound from the rosewood platform. the patch visible in the bottom of the photo is a path for commuters to use to go from one side of the platform to the other. there are automatic gates to prevent people crossing when a train is approaching the platform. since the light is green, i am presuming no train had been through recently, however i did wait around quite a while in the hope of catching a glimpse of a train. alas, to no avail.

the station sign for wulkuraka. i am determined to get a shot of the station names for each station i visit. according to wiki, the name means either "red flowering gum" or "plenty of kookaburras" in indigenous aboriginal language. i just love the name, it is so typically australian, and really does look like it is a place in the middle of no where, though as i said, it is a peaceful area, and there are a lot of really nice houses nearby. 

looking eastbound towards ipswich along the platform, sadly no train in sight. while the trains dont run through here as frequently as i would like, i do know that queensland rail cater to the needs of their commuters, so it may not be viable to have trains running through here more frequently. i believe the coal trains and the grain trains do come through here a lot though on their way to the port of brisbane, which largely follows the cleveland line. the rosewood train itself is only a "3 car" train, meaning just one train on its own, not two attached together as is the norm for the trains running towards ipswich from the city, or from ipswich to the city. as a result, this platform has been designed to just fit the single train, as this is all that runs through the station. it does, however, look as though it is possible to extend the platform in the future. maybe as the area grows, and more people move to the west of ipswich, more trains will run more frequently, and 2 trains coupled together as a "6 car" will begin to run though here. a thought for the future possibly?

i decided to get down on the path for this eastbound shot looking along the wulkuraka station from ground level looking towards the thomas street end of the station. i really like this shot as it shows just how quite the area is. you can also see how short the platforms are from this photo.

why not turn around and get a shot looking westbound i thought, so i did. this is also taken from the path joining the two platforms, showing the approach to the wulkuraka station. again, this photo shows just how quite and peaceful the station and suburb are. there is nothing else around, just trainline and a few homes. i could have stayed around the station for a while in the hope to sighting a train, and not been bored because it was just such a quite place, i felt pretty at peace. it was a great moment and as strange as it may sound, one of the highlights of my holidays - could have only been topped by seeing the train!!!

  

this is the rail bridge over the river just before the bridge crossing the road, as you come into the wulkuraka station. on the day i took the photo, it looked like some queensland rail people were doing a bit of work on this bridge, though it isnt visible from the photo. i will have to return and get some more shots of the bridge, as i think it looks pretty cool. if it is possible, i will try to get from a few angles on either side of the river. by the look of it on google maps, i should be able to get a shot from the eastern end of this bridge looking westbound towards the wulkuraka station.

 

this little rail bridge goes over the road just near the station. it has a clearance of 3m, as is visible on the sign, but it seriously feels smaller than that when you drive under it. i am not very tall at all, but i felt that even i could have opened the window of the car and touched the top with my hand - which clearly i couldnt have done, but it did feel possible. it was a shame there was a car behind me when i came through in the other direction, so i couldnt get a shot from that angle.




train spotted!

i am pleased to announce that this morning on july 24, i managed to get a photo of a train at wulkuraka station platform.i did tag my card on at the station, but since i had driven there, i couldnt then catch the train inbound because my car would be left there all day, and i couldnt imagine karen being very happy with me when we get on at central, and i say 'oh, by the way, the car is at wulkuraka.'

it was surprisingly cheap to catch the train from wulkuraka to roma street, and change trains to a park road train where i then walked to PACE at dutton park. it was only like $2.45, which is cheaper than a morning train from dinmore to central. amazing!

without further ado, here are my latest photos of the wulkuraka station, including a train!

i couldnt believe my luck! i had only just arrived at the station and could see some people waiting on the ipswich platform. i figured that since they were waiting there, a train must be due imminently, and figured it was worth waiting. i had been there only a few minutes and was fishing my camera out when i could hear some beeping, and wondered what it was. sure enough, a train was approaching and the gates for the pedestrian crossing were closing. it is good that they make a sound while doing so because people like me who arent paying attention would be alerted to the arrival of the train. i was a bit upset that i didnt get a shot of the train as it was approaching the platform from further away, but because i didnt realise until too late, my reaction time only permitted me to get a shot as the train was close to the platform. if you look closely enough, you can see that this is just a single train or "3 car" train.

the ipswich train as it is parked at the wulkuraka station. here you cannot see that is it a single train. alas, i was still unable to catch this train to ipswich to change trains because that would then mean catching the train home from central to ipswich and changing trains to a rosewood to continue to wulkuraka. when i told karen that this could have been a possibility, she said she was glad it didnt happen that way because she wouldnt have been very happy with me if we had had to ride the train for another 7 stations!! instead, i drove to our regular station, dinmore, and caught the inbound train from there, as per normal. i did however tag my card on here at wulkuraka to get the stat that i have officially been to this station ;)

i am determined to catch the train either to or from this station in the future! keep an eye out for more posts about wulkuraka the peaceful little station that fits a single 3 car train, is sort of in the middle of no where and is meant to have plenty of kookaburras!