As your paper is numerously subscribed to on Hall's Track and in the vicinity of the tunnel of the Scottsdale railway line, an occasional note published in your journal may be read with some degree of interest by the readers of its pages in other parts of the colony, more particularly when we take into consideration the fact that the construction of the Scottsdale railway line is an undertaking that will cost the State a large amount of money.
The tunnel on this line will be one of the most difficult and perhaps the most expensive which has yet been bored in Tasmania. With these facts before me, I purpose giving in detail (through your columns) a few of the incidents (social and otherwise) connected with the construction of this particular part of the Scottsdale railway line. I will try and summarily dispose of the social question by saying that there is so much of the pares cum parabus facimile congregatur about society here that it leaves social ethics at par, and therefore deprives me of anything to write about on this subject.
Of course, every four weeks being pay time, most of the people throw off the garb of simplicity and carry on their standard the motto, Bibanus Lutheranus, and indulge in games of Bacchus and poker at a certain hostel, and billiards at the Chester Club. A word more about the Chester Club in my next. Our (I cannot call it so) township consists of two hotels — the Premier, situate near the station site ; a reserve for police station, tenders for the erection of which have been called for, in the same vicinity ; and a bakery and general cash store about half a mile further up the road. Still about half a mile further up we have the Hall's Track Hotel, and the Chester Club Rooms, where "members only" can find any comfort they need ; Mr Bachfield's assembly room, general store, post office, bakery, and butcher's shop. On the opposite side of the road we have the Government Engineer's camp. We have also a news agency and bootmaker's shop combined, presided over by Mr T. Parker ; and adjoining it is Mr Birnie's brickmaking plant, where from 12 to 14 hands are continuously employed making bricks, not by the hundred, but by the thousand, for the tunnel.
The settlers about are beginning to spend money on their farms, which gives to the place an air of progress and homeliness. Notably among the latter we find Mr Whitehead, who is erecting a nine-roomed house on his farm, where he intends to reside with his family by and by. Altogether this is the most go-ahead spot on the North-East Railway Line.
On Thursday evening last, while a young man, Mr C. Johnston, was engaged cutting a log which had obstructed the road lower down, by some accident the axe slipped and inflicted a very severe cut in his foot. News was conveyed, by a man who happened to be passing that way, to Mrs Beauchamp, who promptly proceeded to the scene of the accident and brought the sufferer to the Imperial Hotel, and placed him under the care of the kind host and hostess, Mr and Mrs O'Rourke. Mr O'Rourke, with his usual willingness to oblige, placed his horse in the cart next morning, and drove him in to the hospital, where the surgeon expressed his opinion that it was a case of detention for three months before a cure could be effected.
HALL'S TRACK. (1887, April 13). Daily Telegraph (Launceston, Tas. : 1883 - 1928), p. 3. Retrieved May 24, 2019, from http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article149488510
NOTES: Lilydale Council Clerk Bill Wilson produced a good, brief "History of Lilydale Tasmania" in 1961 for the centenary celebrations of 1962. On page 2, he writes:
The opening of the North-Eastern railway to Scottsdale on 9th August, 1889, was an event of great importance to the residents of the Lilydale District. The line was contructed by Boland and Scott at a cost of £370,000. The tunnel cost &15,000 , the work taking three years. The bricks for the tunnel were made in a brick kiln situated on the side of the road a short distance past the property of Mr. Harry Keogh at Lebrina. On the southern side of the brick kiln a hotel was opened.
From what that correspondent to the newspaper wrote in 1887, there were many drinking places, not just one hotel. It is interesting to plot out where all these places were, comparing the two descriptions plus utilising the old Lands Department maps now online.