Great Southern Line Anzac project opened in Goulburn

Over 70 people attended the opening as Southern Tablelands Arts Executive Director Susan Conroy, Artist Tracy Luff, Warren Brown and Mayor Bob Kirk delivered speeches about the project.

Descendants of railway workers who fought in WWI were at the launch. 

Warren Brown, representing Sydney Trains CEO, Howard Collins OBE, delivered a moving address, in which he said railways were  the heart of Australia.

“Goulburn is a railway town... The platforms here, hold heartbreaking secrets long forgotten – where - right where we’re standing - mothers said goodbye to their sons who were leaving the district to embark on the adventure of a lifetime,” Mr Brown said. 

“They’d reach out from carriage windows to touch hands as the steam locomotive chuffed away – until the train was out of sight. These mums and dads weren’t to know, but for many this is the place where that goodbye meant forever.”

Ms Conroy acknowledged the work of artist Tracy Luff and her husband Ross Luff as well as researcher Mary Hutchison.

Tracy Luff has developed designs for each of the commemorative sculpture sites at Goulburn, Moss Vale and Picton.

“Mary Hutchison says what touched her most strongly was the extent to which the legacy of war on individuals was managed privately by the men and their families,” Ms Conroy said.

“That there was a lack of words for what war was like and what it did to people physically and mentally.

“By the First World War, NSW railways employed around 45,000 people including tradespeople, professional white collar workers and labourers.  

”It supported workers who enlisted in various ways and employed them as far as possible in their old positions when they returned. 

“This local, place-based nature of the work led her to research the work and character of each of these stations as well as to gather stories about servicemen who had worked there.  

“Goulburn was the great industrial loco hub, Moss Vale was more of a social scene with its Refreshment Rooms and Blue Gum Girls Choir whose members greeted and farewelled troop trains.  Picton was the stop for the Waley Red Cross Home for shell shocked soldiers and then the site of the Memorial School of Arts erected after the war with community funds which were raised by people like musician and railway porter Alexander Ingleton.”

A key source of funding for the project is the Anzac Centenary Cultural Fund. 

For the Goulburn Commemorative artworks, funds were also provided by Goulburn Mulwaree Council and the Goulburn Soldiers Club.

“The project could not have proceeded without these funds,” Ms Conroy said.

Descendants gathered on the day, including the relatives of Robert Muir, Robert Curtis and Bill Guthrie.