[1] John Moffat arrived in Brisbane from Scotland in 1862, and in 1872 he opened a general store in Stanthorpe with Robert Love, to take advantage of tin mining in the area.

By 1880 Moffat decided to expand his tin-buying business to North Queensland, and that year his prospectors marked out a mineral freehold at the head of the Wild River, near Herberton.

The Loudoun mill held a pivotal position in the North Queensland economy when Irvinebank was booming in 1899, and at its peak was the largest tin battery and smelter in Australia.

However, he needed capital for such a venture, and in 1897 he went to Melbourne to find investors, where he gained the attention of Charles William Chapman and James Smith Reid.

[1] The 1897 Act also approved a central smelter site at Barron Falls, but a short-lived Labor Government quashed the project in December 1899.

The Chillagoe Railway and Mines Company was forced to develop its central smelter inland, accruing high transport costs.

Stone and concrete culverts and drains were inserted in all embankments over 3 feet (0.91 m) high, and steel and masonry bridges were constructed.

It was the first step towards the present system under which mineral railways are government owned and operated but built with private capital repaid out of profits.

[1] The Etheridge Railway was constructed in the most economical way possible using timber for the bridges, sharp curves, steep grades and light (41+1⁄4 pound per yard) rails.

In 1916 Mount Surprise station had a gate, siding, telephone, scales, fork, cattle yards, and a horse and carriage loading bank.

[1] Although construction was delayed by strikes in mid-1908 over the pay rate for railway workers, in February 1909 the line was opened to Einasleigh 165.5 kilometres (102.8 mi) from Almaden.

The Einasleigh copper mine was originally discovered by Richard Daintree in the mid 1860s, but the cost of transporting ore from the site made it uneconomic and it soon closed.

[1] Around 1917 a lime burning business started at Ootann, 13 kilometres (8.1 mi) south of Almaden, using old kilns used during the construction of the railway, and a siding was installed about 1918.

Bullock Creek at 52 kilometres (32 mi) had a siding and railway phone by 1916, and was the site of a permanent fettler's (rail line maintenance worker's) camp by 1932.

Due to public pressure the line was reopened in 1928, after the building of low-level bridges, but it was only maintained to standard suitable for use by railmotors.

Steam trains did not operate on the line again until after the section from Almaden to Mount Surprise was reconditioned between 1949 and 1951 to allow the transport of heavier loads of cattle than could be pulled by diesel engines.

From the 1950s diesel-mechanical locomotives operated in multiple south of Mount Surprise to allow larger loads of cattle to be moved on the section of line to Forsayth.

Einasleigh's population blockaded the railway for four days in late December 1994, holding the "Last Great Train Ride" hostage.

The formation of the line between Almaden and Mount Surprise (not included within the heritage boundary) does not follow its original gradient, due to its reconditioning between 1949 and 1951.

Non significant elements include: modern demountable buildings and a shelter shed at the apex of the fork; a modern highset house north of the main line on Lot 73 SP127336; the steel framed, gable roofed, corrugated zincalume-clad carriage shade over the main line, and the skillion roofed, steel framed and corrugated zincalume-clad interpretation shed northeast of the station building; a small timber shed just southwest of the water tank; and a QR telephone box southwest of the station building.

[1] The passenger station is a lowset timber-framed building, with chamferboard-clad walls and a skillion corrugated iron roof that has been extended to form an awning supported by straight timber brackets.

The central waiting area has a picket fence and gate, toilets are on the left hand side of the building, and an office with a stable style door is on the right.

Its gabled corrugated iron roof has an awning over a loading platform on the north-west elevation which is supported by curved timber brackets.

There is an unused corrugated iron- clad shower room underneath the tank stand, which contains the remains of plumbing fittings.

Straight timber brackets support the awning, and there is a picket fence to the waiting shed section at the south-west end of the building.

It has a skillion roof clad in corrugated steel with modern gutters and downpipes, and the building has been partly reclad in Hardiplank.

The roof of the southern structure used to be supported independently on freestanding timber posts and over-sailed the ceiling line in the form of a tent.

Outside the railway reserve, near the location of the removed western arm of the fork, there is an earth and steel loading bank and some timber cattle yard posts.

[1] The station complexes at the mining towns of Einasleigh and Forsayth demonstrate the economic importance of these locations to the Chillagoe Company.

The tent quarters at Forsayth is a rare surviving Queensland example of its type, and provides evidence of the amenities considered appropriate for railway workers in the early twentieth century.