Today’s history note: How Aussies Beat the Odds To Build The Trans-Australian Railway

By Jess Zavolokin, National Geographic Magazine; October 17, 2017

The railway project that took 2.5 million hardwood sleepers and 140,000 tonnes of rail to connect Australia’s Eastern margins to the Western extremities celebrates its centenary.

Crushed hands, cuts, head injuries and illness resulting from bad food or water accounted for many treatments. There was a shortage of materials, a shortage of men — it was a very awkward period for it to be built,” says Bob Sampson, executive officer at the National Railway Museum.

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