History Deepwater
DEEPWATER RAILWAY STATION
CONSERVATION MANAGEMENT PLAN
SECTION 2• DOCUMENTARY EVIDENCE • PAGE 15

deal with the Deepwater's considerable merino flocks, and Cadell also looked well beyond Sydney for markets:

On Thursday morning a special train conveying 14 trucks of fat sheep and cattle bred and fattened on Deepwater Station left the railway depot being consigned direct to the slaughtering establishment of R. Richards esq., Riverstine (sic), near Sydney. The mutton will be frozen and shipped on board the mail steamers for the London market. The consignment was a splendid one, consisting ... of merino wethers, who, without exaggeration, would average fully 52 lbs.77

The other industry that was fostered entirely by the advent of the railways on the Northern Tablelands was dairy export. Prior to about 1890 small-scale dairy producers on the tablelands simply could not access areas beyond immediate local markets because dairy produce could not be hauled long distances in viable quantities. Thus the dairying industry in rural New South Wales had largely been limited to the hinterlands of deep-sea ports where chilled or refrigerated shipping facilities could be utilised. However, from the early 1890s a number of dairy factories were established along the Great Northern Railway line, including Armidale, Black Mountain, Glen Innes and Tenterfield. 78 In 1908-9 a similar operation was proposed at Deepwater, where a company was formed in January 1909. Although the fate of this proposal is not clear, the Cadell family was heavily involved in the promotion and management of the venture.79

The Deepwater estate was the railway's main local pastoral client and had lobbied the department for improvements to the stock loading facilities at the station precinct from the early 1890s.80 W.T. Cadell wanted to assure potential buyers that there was little risk in purchasing the Deepwater clip `because it goes from the shed here to the railway trucks as fast as it is shorn', the distance being about two miles.81

The Railway Station and Precinct

Railway station supervisors throughout New South Wales were graded according to the traffic, business loads and cultural status of the town or village that the railway served. It should be noted that Deepwater's first supervisor, G. Benning, was formally designated an officer-in-charge rather than stationmaster.82 However, all local railway supervisors had to be experienced in railway operations, have good conduct records, be literate and be properly acquainted with Morse code and
railway rules and regulations.
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Sources
77 DM, 30 May 1891, p. 2.
78 For Black Mountain see D. Lockyer, (Compiler) `Our Mountain', Journal of the Guyra and District Historical Society, 6, 1993, pp. 85-93; for Glen Innes see E.C. Somerlad, The Land of the Beardies ([1922], Glen Innes, 1972 rep.), p. 149.
79 Deepwater Dispatch, 6 February 1909, p. 2; Tenterfield Star, 12 February 1909, p. 2. A.M Cadell was elected director of the Company, whilst other members of the family were present at the inauguration.
80 Deepwater Pastoral Station Correspondence, 18 October 1892, V2200, fol. 57.
81 Ibid., 19 June 1893, fol. 112.
82 Tenterfield Star, 4 September 1886, p. 2.