Freight trains tear through my suburb at night. I’ve made peace with it

My wife and I looked out beyond the back fence of our new Corinda home.

The Springfield and Ipswich train lines, which slice through the middle of Corinda, run right past our house. We hear the whirr of the suburban trains throughout the day and clanking freight trains at night, starting their journey from the nearby Rocklea markets to who-knows-where in western Queensland.

It had the potential to be a dealbreaker, but it turned out we were right. After two weeks, we barely noticed the sounds, and after seven years, we couldn’t imagine being without it. The sounds are comforting, and the sight of the mighty coal trains building speed slowly past the station and out into the inky black of the night is something else.

We’ve set our weekend watches to the arrival of the Westlander coming in from Charleville, and had first-class seats for the testing of Brisbane’s Christmas steam train .

The train line, and parallel Oxley Road, defines Corinda in many ways. The suburb enjoys its semi-regular spot in the news when visiting trucks run afoul of the low rail bridge just past the shops on Oxley Road, leading into Sherwood. It always causes traffic chaos, and it’s fodder for the usual calls to widen Oxley Road or divert the train tracks. But then who would know of our little suburb if we did that?

Beyond the rails, Corinda is split in two, depending on which side of Oxley Road you live on. There’s the “low side” to the left as you travel inbound, and the “high side” to the right. There may be a certain subtle snobbery to the terms, but in all honesty, houses on either side are beautiful: enormous heritage homes with pristine yards, high hedges, and picket fences.

The “high side” is actually named for its gently sloping hill leading towards the high banks of the Brisbane River. The crown on this side of Oxley Road is Francis Lookout – a tiny park with a glorious view of Brisbane’s cityscape on one side and Mount Coot-tha on the other.

Corinda’s history is there as well: gravestones marking the burial of members of the Francis family lie at the edge of a crop of trees. The family were among Corinda’s first settlers in the 1860s, and while they were active and passionate members of the early community, the tale of their lives is pretty grim: seven children, only three of whom survived to adulthood, with the eldest son dying of pneumonia after the 1893 flood.

Other graves in the small park include John Dudley Dunlop, and John and Alice Walker. All have streets bearing their names in Corinda or Sherwood.

The “low side” runs from Oxley Road to Oxley Creek, beyond which the Oxley Creek Common lies. The flat wetland area and its proximity to Oxley Creek invites flooding, and the 2022 floods hit that part of Corinda hard. I remember the inland sea that formed between Corinda and Rocklea, and the clean-up that followed there and in neighbouring suburbs Oxley, Sherwood, Graceville, and Chelmer. We all pitched in, as so many of us did across Brisbane.

Corinda was lucky to have avoided the worst of the damage, but it didn’t stop the best of its people from lending a hand. We’re wary, as a suburb, now.