News - Dawsons Construction Crew Find Their Pioneering Spirit 

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September 2008

Dawsons Construction Crew is celebrating the completion of one of their most challenging projects to date. The brief by their client Queensland Parks and Wildlife was to fabricate and install a 40m long steel walkway to facilitate the safe crossing of the Cairns Kuranda train line at Red Bluff. The project presented many technical, logistical and environmental challenges, which the Dawsons crew met with relish.

On their "wish list" for five years waiting for the finalisation of design and method elements, QPWS were excited by the willingness and "can do" attitude of the Dawsons team, led by Foreman Darren Creber. "It gave our blokes a real appreciation of the amazing feat of construction of the original railway" said Darren. "We had no vehicular access to the site, water was 150m away, and all the footings were dug by hand. But none of that really compares to the original construction 120 years ago which took 9 years to build 15 hand made tunnels and 37 bridges and saw men lose their lives."

The project took four weeks to complete, with the steel being fabricated in Dawsons Cairns workshop in sections small enough to be manually positioned. Queensland Rail assisted with the transportation of the steel to the site.

Footings were all dug the "old fashioned" way and the concrete for the footings was transported down the 60° slope in a specially fabricated chute. "The crew were justifiably proud of their work on this project" says Darren, "we all walked away with a real sense of achievement. And it’s the variety of the work that we enjoy, the guys might be working on a house build one week and the next we’re working on a project like this that tests our problem solving ability and initiative. It keeps our trade skills fresh."

The challenges of this project were more than compensated for by the spectacular view from the workplace. The crew were working in pristine Cairns winter weather - daily temps of 27°C and enjoyed magnificent views of Cairns out to Green Island. Though there were limited wildlife spottings, the occasional adventurous tourist made their way along the existing walking track that links Stoney Creek at Kamerunga with Kuranda.