Engine being taken out of Technical College for 1855 Railway Jubilee, Sydney

Abstract

The photograph shows a number of men and a boy gathered on and alongside a steam engine on rails. From named portrait photographs of William Ellis, it is possible to identify him as the man standing on a block, second from the left.The rails are mounted on blocks and lead into an arched opening in a brick building.The engine has a cab covered by curved corrugated iron. This engine is the one survivor of the four locomotives ordered by the Sydney Railway Company from Robert Stephenson & Co. of Birmingham, England. The Company had initiated the establishment of railways in NSW, but when in 1855 it got into difficulties, its assets and personnel were taken over by the government.The Railway Jubilee celebrated fifty years of trains in New South Wales. Australia's first steam train made its run from Melbourne's Flinders Street station to Port Melbourne on 12 September 1854 and the first New South Wales railway line, between Sydney and Granville, was opened on 26 September 1855. Some of the profits from the Jubilee exhibition went into the establishment of a gymnasium for the Railway Institute. This was a project promoted by Ellis, who was an Institute Councillor. Show more