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Millaquin Mill
Location: Bundaberg
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Early Years
Millaquin Sugar Refinery was built by Robert Cran in 1882 to process sugar juice produced by a number of small mills around the district that only crushed and extracted the juice from the sugar cane. A 20km pipeline was laid to connect the juice mills in the Woongarra District, while other mills (including Fairymead) delivered their juice to Millaquin by punt along the Burnett River.
When Robert Cran died in 1894, it was discovered that the debts of the Millaquin & Yengarie Sugar Company, as the enterprise had become known, exceeded its market value. The Queensland National Bank, as mortgagee, agreed to take over the business as a going concern and operate it as part of its pastoral business.
A crushing mill was established at the Millaquin refinery site in 1906 to produce bagasse and hence overcome the problem of the refinery having to rely on purchasing coal to fire the boilers. This move, however, marked the beginning of the end of the juice mills, with the last closing in 1910. As the juice mills in the Woongarra District closed, horse-worked tramways were built to transport the cane for crushing.
With the business in a satisfactory state by 1911, the Queensland National Bank decided to float the business as a public company and this resulted in the formation of the Millaquin Sugar Company Limited. This new company acquired Windermere Mill, together with Windermere and Hummock Plantations in 1912. Following this acquisition, Windermere Mill was closed and the plantations' cane was crushed at Millaquin. The company purchased its first locomotive in 1914.
Expansion and Mergers
The period between World War 1 and World War 2, as well as after World War 2, was a time of expansion at Millaquin Mill, but in 1955 the Central Sugar Price Board re-assigned the cane growing areas of Gooburrum and Moorlands – both north of the Burnett River – to Fairymead Mill. The Windermere area was also conceded to Qunaba Mill, but this was compensated by new assignments closer to the Mill. This cane re-assignment and further expansion in the 1960s saw new lands brought under production and the mill's rail system grew. The first extension was from South Kalkie to Calavos in 1954, which was further extended in 1961 to Alloway, and to Elliot in 1964. The Railway Department granted approval in 1963 for a line to be built across the North Coast Line at Alloway to serve the Clayton area. The line beyond Pemberton was extended to Elliot Heads in 1972.
The three major players in the Bundaberg District sugar industry were the Millaquin Sugar Company (Millaquin Mill and Qunaba Mill), Fairymead Sugar Company (Fairymead Mill) and Gibson and Howes (Bingera Mill). Talks of some form of amalgamation had been discussed in the 1930s, however nothing eventuated. In 1970, the Bundaberg Sugar Company was created through the merger of Fairymead Sugar Company with Gibson and Howes. Bundaberg Sugar successfully made a take over bid for the Millaquin Sugar Company in 1975.
The Bundaberg Sugar Era
Industry expansion in the 1980s saw additional land under cane production and hence the Mill's output boosted. Closure of Qunaba Mill in 1985 further increased crop size for Millaquin, as did new land assignments on the southern side of the Elliot River. The latter resulted in an extension to the rail network, bringing it to a total of 130 kilometres in length.
Depressed sugar prices and urban expansion of the Bundaberg City and coastal communities have caused some loss in cane growing areas in recent years. This trend was experienced across the district and caused the unexpected announcement on 3rd February 2005 of the closure Fairymead Mill. The consequence of this closure is that Millaquin now processes all cane grown on the southern side of the Burnett River, together with some from the old Fairymead Mill area. This has assured a crop size of approximately one million tonnes, of which 88% is delivered to the mill via the cane railway network, with the remainder being delivered by road.
Millaquin's 3'6" Gauge Lines
The Millaquin Sugar Company constructed a 1¼ mile (2km) 3'6" gauge line to connect the refinery with the Queensland Government Railways' Bundaberg Wharf Branch in 1894. The Woongarra Shire Council later built a 3'6" line linking Millaquin's line at Woongarra Junction to serve Qunaba Mill, which was opened to Pemberton in 1911.
Millaquin worked the line they had constructed until 3rd December 1912, when the Railway Department took over the section from Bundaberg to Woongarra Junction. The Woongarra Tramway was taken over by the Government on 1st January 1918 and became known as the Woongarra Branch. Millaquin retained ownership of the 2 branch lines that served the complex and joined the branch railway at Woongarra Junction. The first of these was known as the Millaquin
Branch, and served both the crushing mill and refinery, while the second, known as the Distillery Branch, served the distillery.
The line beyond Qunaba to Pemberton was closed on 30th May 1948. Seasonal raw sugar from Qunaba Mill to the port at Urangan sustained the remaining section until the opening of the new bulk sugar terminal at Bundaberg in 1958. The loss of the sugar traffic saw the closure of the line beyond Bunda Street in Bundaberg on 1st August 1959. The resulting shortened line served a number of industries as well as Millaquin's two branch lines. The line was “mothballed” on 19th May 1999 and removed in 2006.
The Company initially hired locomotives from the Railway Department to operate the branch lines until the company purchased their first locomotive in 1936, B13 N°81.
Information provided by Mike Quirk through personal notes & "Southern Sugar Sugar" by John Kerr
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