NARALING TO YUNA
It was not long before the line was extended a further 11 miles (17.7 kms) to Yuna. The new addition was officially opened in May 1912.

A sad footnote to building the new line occurred outside Naraling on 12 February 1912, when a ‘navvy’, Hugh Smillie, was killed. His brother and two others were injured. The men were eating their lunch under the shade offered by wagons of a goods train standing nearby. The train was uncoupled causing the wagons to shift, striking the men. A train took the body and injured men back to Geraldton that afternoon.

Yuna was, at first, a modest terminus standing at the edge of mallee country that the government wanted to open up to settlement. The terminus consisted of a single loop siding and a fork line in the scrub at the eastern end. The triangle was moved from Naraling to Yuna to enable the train to return to Geraldton.

THE JOURNEY FROM GERALDTON TO YUNA
The train started on the Northampton line, passing alongside the Indian Ocean eight miles to Wokarina. As the junction for the Yuna line, Wokarina was an important station and from 1913 a station master was permanently appointed there, with a house located nearby for his family. He was responsible for train attendance and to account for the major loadings of wheat, wool, sheep and produce coming down the Yuna line.

From Wokarina the train passed through the gap in the Moresby Range, dropping quickly into the Upper Chapman valley. It continued through undulating country with occasional stopping places for passengers, goods and mail for the local families. The major stations on the line, after Wokarina, were Nanson, Nabawa, Naraling and the terminus at Yuna.

Nanson was named after John Nanson, the local member of parliament. Just before reaching the stop at Nanson the train passed across one of two substantial wooden bridges on the line.The village here was to grow because of the close link to the new railway with shops, a bank, schools and churches opening to serve the community. It was for many years the centre for railway maintenance and home for the railway workers. Here CBH had a wheat bin near the siding with its stock races, a weighbridge, wool ramp and station shed.

The next stop was at Nabawa, the aboriginal word meaning “camp far away”. There was a wheat bin here, a standard shed, siding, wool ramp, weighbridge and stock races (built in 1921). There was a school, hall, church, a shop and hotel. Nabawa was a watering station with the tank down the line but after 1930 it was used less frequently when a tank at Yuna was established.

From Nabawa the line pushed across country, stopping at Protheroe when the lead mines were active, particularly during World War I and into the 1920’s. It was a township of over 100 people at its peak.The Protheroe stop was withdrawn in 1956.

The line then moved out into open plains stopping at Dindiloa where local business included wool, fat lambs and skins. Originally, bagged grain was taken from most sidings but the grain business later became centred at Nanson, Nabawa and Yuna after bulk handling commenced in the late 1930’s.

Naraling, the original terminus, was the next stop with a CBH bulk grain bin. It was declared a townsite in 1910. The railway encouraged settlement in the area and with the increase in population emerged a government school, shops including a blacksmith’s shop, a hall, plus tennis courts and an oval.

Yuna was the highest station on the line at 268 metres above sea level. Like all the other stations, Yuna was unattended and supervised by the station master at Wokarina. Barracks for the train crew were opened in 1924.

The coming of the line to Yuna helped open up the country for settlement. The land had begun to be cleared in 1908 with the surveying completed by 1910. The land was quickly taken up by settlers. Yuna soon was sending, grain, wool and sheep down the line and in the 1920’s clay was sent in open trucks bound for Subiaco and East Perth.