You’ll find numerous examples all over the world where doctors have been conveyed to accident scenes by special trains.

Here in just about every Australian state there have been times when it has been quicker to put the doctor in the cab of a light engine and send him up the line than to have him drive to wherever he has been needed.

Sometimes it’s the poor road conditions that make the train a faster option … sometimes (as in some of the remote mining settlements on the west coast of Tasmania) there simply were no roads.

Here in Queensland the railways went one better and built special ambulances to operate in areas where the roads were often impassible due to heavy rains or even flooding.

Scroll down through this thread and you’ll find two more photos of Queensland Railway Ambulances

http://www.wheelsonsteel.com.au/showthread.php?tid=5127

Fortunately the early settlers and miners were made of sterner stuff than we are today because there were few creature comforts or medical equipment in these railway ambulances.

Stuart

Another thing that puzzles me about the australian rail system is why the different states have different gauges. I would have thought that when the english settled there they would have just used the same train manufacturer and thus have the same gauge.

Regards

Ken

The top speed for these railway ambulances was probably no more than 20 mph. Their normal use was on light rural branchlines so they didn’t have to travel at high speeds.

Those branchlines didn’t see a lot of traffic … maybe one or two trains a day at the most … and the ambulances would have been operated as a train so they would be governed by whatever safeworking system was in use on that particular line.

If it was a typical staff and ticket type safeworking they would have had to wait for a staff to become available if there was an opposing train in the section ahead.

Stuart

How fast did these trains generally run? It looks like the fumes from the exposed motor might fill the cabin.

The rail amulance is really a smart idea when you think of it though. We really take modern roads and hospital access for granted these days.

They must have really had to carefully coordinate what tracks the ambulance would run on though, it seems very dangerous sharing the line with huge locomotives.