This locomotive was built by Hudswell Clarke & Co in Leeds in 1908 to work at the North Eton Mill near Mackay.
It is understood that the locomotive was originally supplied as a 0-4-2ST but converted to a 0-6-0T configuration in 1930 by modifying the rear frame of the engine.
North Eton Mill was plagued by insufficient cane supply and by 1915 the situation had worsened with the Company’s bankers refusing further funds and the government only guaranteeing their account to £8000. Drought and the Dickson wage award for workers threatened to make the 1916 season even more precarious for their financial situation. In 1917 the company defaulted on loan repayments and the Government took possession of the mill.
Following the takeover work began immediately on modernizing the mill plant. The tramway lines were also repaired and brought up to an acceptable standard.
Another company as formed to takeover the mill from the government. The North Eton Co-operative Sugar Milling Association Limited was formed and the mill was taken over from a loan of £60,000 from 1 January 1928.
The railway line to Eton had closed on 1 August 1959 due to the Railway Department finding labour costs on short hauls uneconomic and this resulted in higher costs in the mill transporting the sugar by road.
The locomotive was originally preserved in 1970 at the Pioneers Transport Museumat at Nambour.
In 1973 it moved to the Seal Park Zoo & Museum at Tanawha.
Around 1986 it was acquired by a collector and moved to his industrial premises at Kallangur / Murrumba Downs, north of Brisbane. By 2003 the owner had dismantled the locomotive and the saddle tank was shown to be heavily corroded.
The industrial premises at Kallangur / Murrumba Downs were sold for redevelopment around 2007 and the locomotive was moved to a new business location in Narangba. Following the detah of the owner the locomotive has changed hands again but no details are available.
As an aside, the namesake North Eton Mill closed in 1988 after 100 years of operation, following merger with Farleigh, Racecourse, Marian and Cattle Creek Mills to form the Mackay Sugar Co-operative Association Limited. Glen Hall provides a good history of the North Eton Mill on his Mackay History website.
An excellent source of information on the various Hudswell Clarke steam locomotives employed by the Colonial Sugar Refining Co Ltd (CSR) in Australia and Fiji is ‘Salute to the Hudswells’ by Ian Stocks, David Mewes and John Browning. Page 132 of this book provides some history for this locomotive and other Hudswell Clarke products supplied to the non-CSR mills in Queensland.
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