Working at Australian National
Subsequently, Williams took up the role of Assistant General Manager, Engineering and Planning, for Australian National Railways Commission, which later became Australian National (AN), creating the 'AN corporate plan No.1' within his first year, a document that outlined the AN's goal of becoming profitable within ten years – the first time an Australian publicly owned railway initiated this type of business philosophy. In 1979 Williams overcame much criticism to become General Manager for AN, and between 1980 and 1988 instigated many changes. These included the introduction of a new corporate identity, the investment in a new standard gauge mainline from Tarcoola to Alice Springs, as well as standardisation of the line from Port Pirie to Adelaide. New buildings and railway infrastructure were also built, and new locomotives and rolling stock were introduced.
During this period Williams achieved his corporate plan goals, but in doing so AN was required to make some hard decisions, in particular with regard to line and station closures. During the 1980s Williams modernised the business side of the railways by introducing computerised business systems to improve information management. In 1986 AN introduced the computerised Train Information Management System (TIMS) which could recall details of 87,117 registered items of rolling stock operating on the mainland and in Tasmania, as well as also give their location at any point in time.
Later career
In early 1988 Williams left AN and became Managing Director of the Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC), which was built the six controversial Collins Class submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. The hull of the first Australian built submarine HMAS Collins was laid down in February 1990, and was formally launched by Williams on 28 August 1993. In late 1993, after six years with ASC, Williams decided to leave the company and became a railway consultant from 1994 to 1997, working for the Indian Railways and China Railway Corporation, as well as heading SA Ships which built and sold ships for the Australian and international markets.
In 1997 Williams began work with Kinhill Engineering, developing the engineering program and establishing funding for the construction of the Alice Springs to Darwin railway line. In 2000 Williams became the General Manager for FreightLink, the company that would operate freight trains over the new railway line. With his untimely passing in 2001, he did not see the project completed.
Biography
Donald Gatherer Williams was born 23 August 1937 in Fremantle, Western Australia, where his father worked for the WAGR as the Chief Civil Engineer. The family also spent time in Northam and Kalgoorlie, where Williams developed a love and respect of the outback and the people living there.
Williams was a constant supporter of local communities located along the Trans-Australian Railway line, where he attended the annual race days at Tarcoola and Rawlinna as well as the children's annual sports days at Cook. He was also a strong supporter of railway preservation in South Australia, and was a keen supporter of the National Railway Museum in Port Adelaide.
During his life Williams received many awards and honours including:
- 1985 Awarded the Howard Medal by the British Institution of Engineers
- 1991 Elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering
- 1993 Made an Officer of the Order of Australia [1]
- 1998 Received an honorary doctorate from the University of South Australia [2]
- 2013 Inducted posthumously into the Engineers Australia South Australian Hall of Fame [3]
Williams died on 7 August 2001. [4]
John Job Crew Bradfield was an Australian engineer best known as the chief proponent of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, of which he oversaw both the design and construction. He worked for the New South Wales Department of Public Works from 1891 to 1933, although he was a Queenslander by birth. He was the first recipient of an engineering doctorate from the University of Sydney. Other notable projects with which he was associated include the Cataract Dam, the Burrinjuck Dam, and Brisbane's Story Bridge. The Harbour Bridge formed only one component of the City Circle, Bradfield's grand scheme for the railways of central Sydney, a modified version of which was completed after his death. He was also the designer of an unbuilt irrigation project known as the Bradfield Scheme, which proposed that remote areas of western Queensland and north-eastern South Australia could be made fertile by the diversion of rivers from North Queensland.
Australians generally assumed in the 1850s that railways would be built by the private sector. Private companies built railways in the then colonies of Victoria, opened in 1854, and New South Wales, where the company was taken over by the government before completion in 1855, due to bankruptcy. South Australia's railways were government owned from the beginning, including a horse-drawn line opened in 1854 and a steam-powered line opened in 1856. In Victoria, the private railways were soon found not to be financially viable, and existing rail networks and their expansion was taken over by the colony. Government ownership also enabled railways to be built to promote development, even if not apparently viable in strictly financial terms. The railway systems spread from the colonial capitals, except in cases where geography dictated a choice of an alternate port.
The first railway in colonial South Australia was a horse-drawn tramway from the port of Goolwa on the Murray River to an ocean harbour at Port Elliot in 1854. Today the state has 1,600 mm broad gauge suburban railways in Adelaide, a number of country freight lines, as well as key 1,435 mm standard gauge links to other states.
The Prospector is a rural passenger train service in Western Australia operated by Transwa between East Perth and Kalgoorlie.
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The Trans-Australian Railway, opened in 1917, runs from Port Augusta in South Australia to Kalgoorlie in Western Australia, crossing the Nullarbor Plain in the process. As the only rail freight corridor between Western Australia and the eastern states, the line is strategically important. The railway includes the world's longest section of completely straight track.
Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR) was the operator of railway services in the state of Western Australia between October 1890 and June 2003. Owned by the state government, it was renamed a number of times to reflect extra responsibility for tram and ferry operations that it assumed and later relinquished. Its freight operations were privatised in December 2000 with the remaining passenger operations transferred to the Public Transport Authority in July 2003.
Tarcoola railway station is a railway station in the Australian state of South Australia located on the Trans-Australian Railway in the state's west. It serves the town of Tarcoola and is the northern junction of the Sydney-Perth and Adelaide-Darwin railways, which share approximately 530 kilometres (329 mi) of track between Tarcoola and Crystal Brook.
David Albert Lloyd Johnston is an Australian politician who was a Liberal Party member of the Australian Senate from 2002 to 2016, representing the state of Western Australia. Johnston was the Minister for Defence from 18 September 2013 to 23 December 2014, when he was replaced by Kevin Andrews.
The Commonwealth Railways were established in 1917 by the Government of Australia with the Commonwealth Railways Act to administer the Trans-Australia and Port Augusta to Darwin railways. It was absorbed into Australian National in 1975.
Railways in Western Australia were developed in the 19th century both by the Government of Western Australia and a number of private companies. Today passenger rail services are controlled by the Public Transport Authority through Transperth, which operates public transport in Perth, and Transwa, which operates country passenger services. Great Southern Rail operates the Indian Pacific.
The ADK class are a class of diesel multiple units that were previously operated by Western Australian Government Railways (WAGR) in Perth, and later Transdev Auckland on Auckland's suburban rail network, and are currently operated by MetroBus in Maputo, Mozambique. Originally built by Commonwealth Engineering and the Midland Railway Workshops for WAGR in the late 1960s, all but one were sold in 1993 to New Zealand Rail, and were then owned by Auckland Transport. The units were completely withdrawn from service on 5 December 2014, following completion of electrification of Auckland's network.
Kalgoorlie railway station is the most eastern attended station in Western Australia, located at the eastern terminus of the Eastern Goldfields Railway. It serves the city of Kalgoorlie. Beyond Kalgoorlie, the line continues east as the Trans-Australian Railway.
The X Class were a class of diesel locomotive built by Beyer, Peacock & Company and Metropolitan-Vickers, Bowesfield Works, Stockton-on-Tees for the Western Australian Government Railways between 1954 and 1956.
The GT46C is a model of diesel electric locomotive designed and built by Clyde Engineering using Electro-Motive Diesel components. Entering service from 1997 for a number of Australian rail freight operators, those built for Westrail are known as the Q class, those for FreightLink are the FQ class and a single unit for Freight Australia is the V class.
The K class are a class of diesel locomotives built by English Electric, Rocklea for the Western Australian Government Railways between 1966 and 1969.
The Esperance Branch Railway is a railway from Kalgoorlie to the port of Esperance in Western Australia.
Bruce Carter is a prominent South Australian businessman and former member of the Executive Committee of Cabinet for the Government of South Australia. He is Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants, a founding partner of the South Australian office of Ferrier Hodgson, and is considered to be one of the state's most influential people.
Ronald John Fitch was an Australian railway executive and railway engineer. The majority of his working career was with the Western Australian Government Railways, Commonwealth Railways and the South Australian Railways, where he served as the Railway Commissioner from 1965 until 1973.
Steve Ludlam is a defense industry engineer and former chief executive of the Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC). He was recruited to ASC from the United Kingdom in 2010 and held the position until mid 2014. In the UK, Ludlam was President of Submarines at Rolls-Royce where he led the modernisation of the country’s nuclear-powered submarine program. He first worked with Rolls-Royce as a development engineer on nuclear submarine programs. He was promoted to General Manager of the Submarine Nuclear Reactor Test Establishment prior to his executive appointment. Mr Ludlam has a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a master's degree in Nuclear Engineering. He is a Fellow of Engineers Australia and has been acknowledged as one of Engineers Australia’s 100 most influential members four times. He is a Fellow of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, UK and the Royal Academy of Engineering.
