After a rocky year, it’s full steam ahead for the Southern Downs Steam Railway

This Southern Downs tourist favourite attracts up to 600 travellers a time, but when COVID hit, volunteers thought they’d run out of steam.

President Peter Gregory and PR and marketing manager Chris Freeman spend their time giving back.

Peter Gregory has been volunteering with the Southern Downs Steam Railway for more than 12 years, but last year he thought his days with the crew could be numbered.

After retiring from his job on railways near Ipswich 20 years ago, Mr Gregory left Brisbane behind to move closer to his daughter in Warwick.

“She married a Warwick lad, that’s how it all started and I thought, ‘You know what? I’m going to retire out here,” he said.

He joined the Southern Downs Steam Railway, a volunteer group that runs heritage train trips throughout the region, and is now president.

Spending his retirement working on a 70-year-old steam engine was just the ticket.

Then came COVID.

Mr Gregory said their first trip of 2020 on Australia Day ran to plan, so despite an increase in reported cases, they arranged for more day trips.

“We thought, ‘let’s go to Toowoomba’, and we had 600 passengers booked,” he said.

“On March 24, COVID hit us.”

No trains could leave the station, and the railway’s volunteers sent home.

Trevor Costin, 85, soldering copper.

A glimmer of hope came six months later when Mr Gregory was allowed to open the workshop again and get people back on site to start tending to heritage collection.

“We thought, ‘oh yeah, we’ll start going in September’,” he said.

“We had everything planned, bookings and everything.”

But in early September, a nurse at Ipswich hospital tested positive to COVID, sending 220 staff into isolation.

“People just pulled out like that,” Mr Gregory said.

Mr Gregory said things were looking so uncertain that by Christmas last year, they were ready to close the doors.

“We had no money, we had no income,” he said.

Rather than walk away, they gave it one more shot, planning a trip in early January 2021.

“Well, the bookings just went mad,” Mr Gregory said.

“We ran it again the following Sunday, and the same thing.”

The 70-year-old locomotive.

Those wanting to jump on board where now being told to book in advance, meaning Mr Gregory and the volunteers had plenty of work ahead of them.

“We just love it, we wouldn’t be here if we didn’t,” he said.

Originally published as After a rocky year, it’s full steam ahead for the Southern Downs Steam Railway