| Weight | 30 tons |
| Driving Wheels | 2ft 2½in |
| Boiler Pressure | 160psi |
| Cylinders | Outside – 10in x 12in |
This locomotive was built by Hudswell Clarke & Co in Leeds in 1938 and was one of a fleet of locomotives operated by Colonial Sugar Refining Ltd (CSR) at is mills in Queensland. This locomotive spent its entire working life based at the Victoria Mill at Ingham north of Townsville. It was given the name Victoria.
CSR acquired large amounts of land in the north of Queensland after being enabled to do so by the passing of act by the Queensland Government in 1881. CSR invested £500,000 in establishing sugar plantations with the two major ones created were the Victoria Plantation and the Homebush Plantation.
Kidnapped or Blackbirded South Sea Islander labour was brought to Queensland on chartered boats to deforest the land, plant and cut the sugarcane, and build the mills. The 1884 recruiting voyage of Hopeful blackbirding labour vessel which kidnapped and murdered many Islanders was under contract to deliver labourers to the manager at the Victoria Plantation. An 1886 inquiry into this type of labour found that up to 60% of the Islanders transported to the Homebush Plantation had died within four years. The kidnapping and deaths of these workers resulted in 111 Islanders being removed from the CSR plantations by the Queensland government and returned to their homelands in 1885. CSR was compensated £4,424 by the government for the loss of these labourers. CSR also experimented with cheap Chinese, Javanese, Singhalese and Japanese coolie labour on their plantations.
By the 1890s, Knox decided to abandon the plantation system in Queensland and return to the central mill method used in its New South Wales operations. CSR subdivided the Victoria and Homebush estates into small farms which it sold or leased to white farmers who would sell their cane to CSR to be processed at its nearby mills.
In 1891 the Queensland government imposed a ban on recruiting indentured South Sea Island workers, but the ban was promptly postponed for 10 years when the sugar industry was badly affected by the global economic depression.
In 1901 the federal government passed the Pacific Island Labourers Act, which called for the deportation of most South Sea Islanders.
The mill at Victoria has been modernised and expanded several times over the years. By the mid 1950s following major expansion of the mill and its growing area it had become one of the largest in Australia and Ingham district was anticipating its first million ton cane crop.
In 1956 the locomotive was overhauled and repaired using parts fro three earlier Hudswell Clarke engines.
- The frames, wheels, running gear and tender were from this locomotive – 1701
- The boiler was from works number 1552 of 1925
- The cab was from works number 1659 of 1936.
Whilst the accepted rule is that a locomotive takes the identity associated with the frames the combined locomotive was given the name Melbourne rather than Victoria. The unused remains of the three locomotives was scrapped in 1956.
CSR was among the last commercial users of steam locomotives in Australia, maintaining several Hudswell Clarke locos until 1976. At the cessation of steam operations, the remaining CSR steam locomotives were generously donated to various preservation societies.This locomotive was donated to the Australian Narrow Gauge Railway Society & Museum (ANGRMS) in 1976.
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