User:War steam train/sandbox

''' THE STORY OF HOW NAMBOUR MORETON SUGAR MILL ALL BEGAN Residence of Nambour from 1867-2003, viewed the Cane Trains in operation. The Cane Locomotors would haul down one of the main streets of Nambour, the harvested sugar cane from the farms to the Morton SugarMill in the centre of town. A fond memory of my childhood is driving into Nambour to watch these Cane Trains operating and smell of boiling sugar at the mill, in the air.The Moreton Central Sugar Mill Company was formed in December 1894. Land bounded by the North Coast railway on the west and Gympie Road on the east was purchased for a mill site at the small settlement of Nambour. ... As mortgagee, the Queensland government took over the running of the mill between 1904 and 1907. Born in Childers in 1942, Graham Coleman was born into a sugar cane growing family and has had ‘sugar in his blood from the day he was born’. After a succession of courses and working his way up from apprentice fitter and turner to eventually Chief Engineer at Mourilyan Mill, Graham was appointed as the General Manager of the Moreton Sugar Mill in 1978. He was instrumental in lifting the Moreton Mill from the ranks of low production to where it reached record tonnages just before he was posted to overseas mills in 1997. After several years overseas Bundaberg sugar sent him with the mission to help save the mill where he had spent almost half his career in the industry. It has been his melancholy duty to close the Mill down after unsuccessfully trying to find a way forward for the Mill with the stakeholders in an industry environment that always had the odds stacked against it. His has been a difficult and heavy duty, but the respect that he is shown by everyone around the Mill, and by the growers, is testament to Graham Coleman’s personable character.Howard Smith Ltd owned the Moreton Mill in those days; they had just bought the Mill in 1976 and I had previously worked for Howard Smith at Mourilyan. I accepted the job as Production Supervisor down here at Moreton and a year later became the General Manager of the Moreton Sugar Company Ltd. Yes, I started as the Production Supervisor of the Mill and became General Manager and stayed in that role for the next 19 years. I left Moreton Sugar Mill in July 1997 and I worked for Tate and Lyle - who was the owner of Bundaberg Sugar Company then - I worked for them in China where they owned the majority share holding in two sugar companies and I was Chairman of the Board of those two companies. We also managed those two companies in China and I sat on the board of another five companies over there that Tate and Lyle had an interest in. In about 2002 it must have been - earlier last year - I returned to Moreton Sugar Mill to try to help the sugar industry here find a way to move it forward so that it would survive into the future. Unfortunately we were unable to find a way and the future of the sugar industry has since gone in the opposite direction and now it is about closing the Mill as smoothly as possible with a minimum effect on the whole community.