Type : Station/Junction
Line : South Line
Distance from Hobart : 086.900km
Opened : 1876 as Oatlands, renamed Parattah Junction 1885
Closed : n/a
Status : Closed (station), loop in use
Name meaning : Aboriginal word meaning "ice and cold".
Notes : Junction for the (closed) Oatlands Branch. Crossing loop, loco servicing facilities, refreshment room, watering facilities, coaling stage, turntable, goods shed, stockyard and a triangle (wye) existed at the site. Loading gantry still extant though disused. Station last used early 2000s for tourist trains. Was the highest station (altitude) in Tasmania. A Tas Rail depot is near the site. Station demolished and rebuilt in 1965.
Location of the station (LISTmap)
View over the site (undated, uncredited)
Parattah, August 2023 (Google)
Parattah c1933, Hobart to Launceston express (John Grimwade/ARHS)
Parattah (Lynette Graham)
Robert Clark:
Parattah Station, my father Bob Clark on the left, station master at the time
Tour train at Parattah, 17/4/1965 (Grunbach)
H3 hauling BBL+AAR+BBL+SP cars on the first day of the Easter 1965 ARHS tour: Hobart to Devonport, then M4 to Burnie (shedded overnight at Wynyard).
Parattah, 1911
Parattah station, prior to 1965 (Geoffrey Edward Love)
Parattah, 1968 (Lands & Surveys Department)
Plan 7812367 (709) TGR - Main Line - plan of Parattah Railway Station and yard [Ink drawing] (1930) (Tas Libraries)
Plan 7812368 (710) TGR - Main Line - Parattah Station Yard - including proposed alterations [Ink drawing with pencil notations] (1931) (Tas Libraries)
Plan 7812369 (711) Tasmanian Main Line Railway - Parattah Station ['Oatlands' appears in title, crossed out] [Ink, pencil and watercolour drawing with pencil notations]
R2 at Parattah with a Hobart to Launceston passenger service, R B McMillan photo, 15/1/1949
Australian Railway Historical Society special excursion, at Parattah, Tasmania, 28 March 1970. David Lidster photo
An Ab class locomotive starts a southbound passenger train after a refreshment stop at Parattah. G W Smithies photo (18/2/1932)
Sheep wagon I22 at Parattah. Ted Lidster photo
I 22 was constructed in Hobart with a locally built body on an imported frame. Entered traffic in 1887, originally with a load capacity of 7 tons / 80 sheep. From 1949, the loading was reduced to 6 tons. This particular sheep wagon was quite long lived, not being written off until 11-10-1978 at the ripe old age of 91.
The evening Hobart to Launceston passenger at Parattah. Ted Lidster photo (1/3/1966)
Ab class loco at Parattah, 1930s (Grunbach)
Big Ben at Parattah coal stage, March 1949
H3 at Parattah, 6/3/1965
Barracks at Parattah (Geoffrey Love)
The gantry was originally set up to load and unload bins that were used to transport sawdust from the Triabunna woodchip mill to the APPM paper mill at Burnie.The sawdust was used to fire the boilers at the Burnie mill. Truck would transport two bins at a time between Triabunna and Parratah. Unreliable supply of bins saw sawdust transported by road from Triabunna to Burnie in the finish.
Lynette Graham (2/11/24)
Derwent Valley Railway trip at Parattah, 1994
Parattah 1928 (Vera Fisher photo)