It was constructed from Wulkuraka near Ipswich to Lowood (1884) then extended to Esk (1886) then Toogoolawah (February 1904), Yimbun (September 1904), Linville (1910), Benarkin and Blackbutt (1911) and finally to Yarraman (1913).
[1] Closer settlement of the Brisbane Valley had progressed sufficiently by 1877 for the country from Walloon via Esk and Nanango to be examined as a possible route for a railway to Gympie.
However, the original plans for these branch lines were withdrawn from parliamentary consideration in 1880 on the recommendation of FT Gregory, MLC.
In spite of this opposition, in 1881 the Queensland Parliament approved the building of the Brisbane Valley branch line from Wulkuraka to Esk.
The contract for the first section was let to O'Rourke and McSharry in October 1882 with Henry Charles Stanley acting as Chief Engineer.
The second section to Esk opened on 9 August 1886 and remained the terminus for more than 17 years, becoming an important centre and livestock loading point.
In 1889 James McConnel began selling off small parcels of land from his property Cressbrook to his workers for dairying.
The railway, which provided rapid and cheap transport to Brisbane, fostered the timber industry's development.
[1] In the late nineteenth century four dairy factories operated in the Brisbane Valley and utilised the railway for transporting milk and its products.
James McConnel of Cressbrook stated that an extension of the Brisbane Valley Railway Line would enable selectors to pursue dairying rather than grazing and to cultivate the land.
The inquiry subsequently recommended a 45 kilometres (28 mi) extension of the Brisbane Valley Branch Line to Moore, which was approved in December of the same year.
The first section, to the new township of Toogoolawah, which was the site of the Cressbrook Condensed Milk Factory, opened on 8 February 1904.
On the ranges hoop and bunya pines were already being exploited, and with conservation it was expected that freight for the railway would be supplied for many years.
Plans for the 28 miles (45 km) of rail line from Yimbun to Blackbutt were approved at a Committee meeting on SS Lucinda on 9 January 1907.
Relative to their length, tunnels are the most costly of all forms of railway engineering and their problems include hazards such as rock falls.
The cost to the residents in the benefited area served by the rail line including the Yimbun Railway Tunnel in the financial year 1913-1914 was £3389.
Accordingly, in the 1920s, the railway was transporting cream to the butter factories along the Brisbane Valley line - Colinton until 1921, Toogoolawah, Esk and Lowood.
[1] After flood damage in the 1974 the Brisbane Valley Branch Line was threatened with permanent closure but re-opened after several months.
Afterwards a passenger service operated from Ipswich to Toogoolawah until March 1993 when the Brisbane Valley Branch Line closed.
The only remaining buildings are at Yarraman, Linville and Lowood (now serving as railway museums) and Toogoolawah, Esk and Coominya.
The Yimbun Railway Tunnel is important surviving evidence of the Brisbane Valley Branch Rail Line.
Over the next 30 years it was extended several times to facilitate the transport of timber, livestock and agricultural produce and was intended to become an alternative, shorter route from the South Burnett to Brisbane.