The Tea and Sugar Train

THE TEA AND SUGAR TRAIN

Words Graham Seal, music trad, adapted and arranged by G Seal © 2007

'The Tea and Sugar', as this legendary train was known, used to run along the Transcontinental line until 1966. It was a vital link for the isolated fettler communities along the line.

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The Tea and Sugar train runs on the Nullarabor Plain

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All along the Transcontinental Line

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When they hear that whistle blow, all the fettler families know

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It’s time to come and wait beside the line.

It’s a lonely life for a railway fettler’s wife

So many distant days and nights to fill

So many empty years, too many lonely tears

And a silent wooden cradle haunts her still

Now she’s aboard that train with a ticket in her name

And a suitcase she’s had packed a long, long time

And when they’re lighting up the lamps in those dusty railway camps

There’ll be one more lonely fettler on the line

For the Tea and Sugar Train’s not coming back again

They say that old loco had to go

She’s never coming back down that long and lonely track

But sometimes the fettler hears that train blow

...

There’s no Tea and Sugar Train on the Nullarbor Plain

But sometimes you will hear that whistle blow.