Have you ever wondered about the engineering feats you drive past each day?

Bridges spanning valleys and gorges, which would otherwise be difficult to pass, are lost in familiarity and taken for granted.

These pioneering achievements are easy to miss when you're travelling over them by car or train.

Yet they have played a crucial role in Australian history, opening up rural communities by providing access to cities for business, transport and mail.

Never more so was this the case for the bridges, built by William Pagan, connecting Brisbane to Queensland's oldest town, Gayndah, in the North Burnett region, south-west of Bundaberg.

A 1905 portrait of engineer William Pagan, the man behind the bridges that opened up the North Burnett region. ( Supplied: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland )

In 1902, money was tight, unemployment high and resources scarce, when Pagan took up the position of chief engineer at the Queensland Railways Department.

In 1890, a severe drought had sent Australia spiralling into depression and as the demand for wool decreased, public works funding stopped up as banks closed.

Pagan had already designed and built Swansons Rail Bridge in Toowoomba in 1899 and over the following eight years, despite the recession and the lack of available materials, he designed and constructed another five bridges, including three in the North Burnett.

The bridges are heritage-listed for their high degree of creative or technical achievement, recognising their aesthetic significance, and the role both Pagan and the bridges had in Queensland's history.

The Burnett River at Gayndah required multiple bridges to open up access west of the Bundaberg region. ( ABC Wide Bay: David Shipton )

Deep Creek Railway Bridge

In 1905, when construction resumed under the Railway Department's day labour program, Pagan designed and built a bridge at Deep Creek, near Biggenden.

The bridge spans 24 metres, double the length he had previously built, and is the third-longest span of its type in Queensland.

By creating a concrete viaduct flanked by two smaller arches on either side, Pagan made a substantial development in concrete arch design, according to Brian McGrath, Engineering Heritage Australia's Queensland archival representative.

Opened in 1905, Deep Creek Bridge was the first step in opening the railway between Brisbane and Gayndah. ( Supplied: John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland )

Mr McGrath said Pagan was a forward thinker when it came to bridge design.

"He introduced innovative structures and had an eye for incorporating a better and reduced cost of previously constructed bridge design elements," he said.

Ideraway Creek Railway Bridge

Flushed with the success of the Deep Creek Bridge, Pagan's next bridge at Ideraway Creek near Gayndah was perhaps his most novel, observed historian and former Gayndah Shire councillor John Mellor.

With the depression in full swing, Pagan sourced and reused the falsework, or temporary support structures, from Townsville's Burdekin River Bridge to construct a main span known as a pin jointed fishbelly truss.

Historian John Mellor at the Ideraway Creek Railway Bridge, known by Gayndah locals as the 'upside down bridge'. ( ABC Wide Bay: David Shipton )

Looking like an upside down Harbour Bridge, the Ideraway Creek Railway Bridge spans 46 metres, and is the only bridge of its type in Queensland.

When it opened in December 1907, there was only one more river to cross before the railway line could be opened to Gayndah.

The Burnett River was to be his most difficult challenge.

Steep Rocky Creek Railway Bridge

Crossing the Burnett River and the Steep Rocky Creek posed engineering difficulties.

Adding to the challenge was Pagan's desire for the bridge to be able to carry the heaviest locomotives of the time, and the need to keep maintenance costs low.

The aesthetics of the bridge was also a special consideration, as the site was said to "possess considerable scenic beauty with large lagoons in which fish and fowl abound", as reported by the Maryborough Chronicle and Wide Bay and Burnett Advertiser in 1905.

Steep Rocky Creek Railway Bridge was a design wonder when it was built in 1907. ( ABC Wide Bay: David Shipton )

To meet these requirements, Pagan drew up an innovative design for a bridge with reinforced discontinuous arches, the first of its type in Australia when it was built in 1907.

Spanning 366 metres, the bridge has five concrete arches and an 8 metre joist at either end.

There was much celebration in December 1907 when the line opened in Gayndah, and the railway had an immediate benefit to the communities it traversed.

Each arch of the Steep Rocky Creek Bridge was formed with timber and filled with concrete mix sourced from the creek below. ( ABC Wide Bay: David Shipton )

Opening up a community



Cynthia Berthelsen from the Gayndah Museum remembers that when she was a child, the railway meant freedom of travel. The trip to Brisbane and boarding school was 12 hours.

The line also provided vital transport of the sick to regional hospitals.

Mr Mellor remembers the nights he spent as a young boy running up and down through the sleeper carriages, once the ticket collector had alighted, looking for spare beds to bunk down for the night.

Cynthia Berthelsen from the Gayndah Museum remembers how the railway gave North Burnett residents new freedom into the major cities. ( ABC Wide Bay: David Shipton )

He recalls the railway facilitated the opening of the local butter factory and increased prosperity for the Gayndah region.

Indeed, Gayndah became a recognisable town on the maps and the citrus region boomed.

In the 1940s, during World War II, the railway was considered a back-up transport route to the main rail line, in the event of a bombing or invasion in the east coast of Australia, Mr Mellor said.

As road transport and trucking replaced rail transport, the line became less frequently used and in April 2012 a decision was made by the State Government to close the line permanently due to maintenance costs.

Old bridges may have new chapter

Bringing these bridges into modern times can be a difficult process.

John Gorringe, CEO of the Isis Sugar Mill, which now owns the bridges, said that as part of a proposal to grow sugar cane in the North Burnett region, the company was looking at the feasibility of using the railway line to bring cane from Gayndah to Childers, near Bundaberg.

So after 111 years, William Pagan's engineering feats may be given new life.