main index
5th January 1933 - Peterborough then, 'his worship the Lord Mayor of Quorn'
link to original sources

The largest station on this stretch was Peterborough, where the Broken Hill ore shipments come down. There were a large number of trucks carrying stuff that had been through the preliminary processes, most of them seemed to contain some lead.

The end of the afternoon's run came at Quorn Quorn railway station, where we again changed trains, though the guage, 'mirabile dictu', remained the same. This time the change was to a really swish train, considering, complete with dining car, sleeper, observation car etc, on which we will go right through to Alice Springs. As we had an interval of about one and a half hours at Quorn we walked over to the pub and had tea. Quorn must be the cleanest town in Australia, it looks as if even the roads were swept every day.

Richard Thompson
Richard Thompson

Coming back to the train we were greeted by the mayor of Quorn, one Richard Thompson. He proudly claims to have the world's record for mayors, having held the office for 27 years. His main claim to fame seems to be the possession of a very ornate autograph book containing the names of everyone from Dukes and Duchesses to test cricketers; anyway he insisted on us signing on the dotted line which we eventually did. He also gave us a hard-back of the Back to Quorn Week cover of Back to Quorn week booklet which provided us with much amusement in the weary hours to come as his worship the Lord Mayor of Quorn seems to have produced it solely as a means of self-advertisment.

We went away from Quorn in the late evening, skirting the Flinders ranges, (continues...)

previous
next
(CC) reserved by Simon Pockley [23] I try to respond within 24 hours [contact] (CC) [contact]