Qualla: Reid, Western Australia https://qualla.com/reid-western-australia en-us © 2026 Bendyline Mon, 20 Jul 2026 10:21:26 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/e/2/reid-western-australia-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: Reid, Western Australia https://qualla.com/reid-western-australia Reid, Western Australia: Introduction https://qualla.com/reid-western-australia/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Around 1950, a photographer caught a wall of red dust bearing down on Reid - a Nullarbor storm rolling in across the flat, swallowing the horizon. In the foreground stand a few railway cottages; off to the side, the water tanks that were the whole point of the place. That photograph is one of the last clear pictures of a town that no longer exists. Reid was never meant to be charming or large. It was meant to keep the trains running, and for a while, against the odds, a community grew up around that single stubborn purpose.

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/e/2/reid-western-australia-wp/qfe2-reid-western-australia-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full Reid, Western Australia: A Name from Parliament, a Home on the Plain https://qualla.com/reid-western-australia/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Reid was established in 1916, while the Trans-Australian Railway was still being hammered together across the Nullarbor, and it took its name from Sir George Reid, who had served as Australia's fourth prime minister from 1904 to 1905. It is a curious habit of this railway: out on...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/e/2/reid-western-australia-wp/qfe2-reid-western-australia-a-name-from-parliament-a-home-on-the-plain.mp3 0:06 2 full Reid, Western Australia: Coal, Water, and a One-Teacher School https://qualla.com/reid-western-australia/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. In the age of steam, a locomotive crossing the Nullarbor was a thirsty, hungry machine, and Reid existed to feed it. About a dozen railway families lived here, and most of the breadwinners spent their days refreshing engines with water and coal and keeping the track itself in rep...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/e/2/reid-western-australia-wp/qfe2-reid-western-australia-coal-water-and-a-one-teacher-school.mp3 0:06 3 full Reid, Western Australia: Undone by Progress https://qualla.com/reid-western-australia/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The thing that killed Reid was not drought or disaster but efficiency. When diesel locomotives arrived in 1951, the calculus of the railway changed overnight. A diesel engine did not need coaling stations strung every few dozen kilometres; the whole line could be served by a sing...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/e/2/reid-western-australia-wp/qfe2-reid-western-australia-undone-by-progress.mp3 0:06 4 full Reid, Western Australia: What the Dust Reclaimed https://qualla.com/reid-western-australia/ Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. The buildings were demolished, and by 2019 only a few scattered remnants remained on the plain - a concrete pad here, a rusted fitting there, the ghost of a township you could walk past without noticing. The Indian Pacific still rolls through, but it does not stop, and the passen...

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]]> Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/q/f/e/2/reid-western-australia-wp/qfe2-reid-western-australia-what-the-dust-reclaimed.mp3 0:06 5 full