The steam locomotive finished what the pioneers had begun: the opening-up of Australia. By the time steam had reached its su- premacy Australia had truly come of age.
The railways spanned Australia with steel highways, and the great steam trains that roared through the night banished for ever the national enemy, Distance.
The steam locomotive personified energy in a way the motor car never could. No machine has ever seemed so alive. No machine has ever seemed so powerful.
This remarkable collection of historical photographs re-creates a time when steam was part of everyday life in Australia; a time when the wail of the whistle and the rumble of freight wagons was a familiar sound in almost every town.
This is a stunning journey back into a past which still lingers in living memory.
