Tasmania Postmark - ___ Western Line?

This postmark looks to be Tasmania, and it seems to say Western Line, at least, which I understand to be the second railway in Tasmania? There might be enough room for one more word in there...ideas? "Far" Western Line?

Would this be a TPO/RPO? And is this at all uncommon?

Thanks for your time.



*** Moved by Staff to a more appropriate forum. ***

The Western Line, previously known as the Launceston and Western Line is a 78Km freight rail corridor that runs from Western Junction to Wiltshire in Tasmania, Australia. The original Line was built in 1871 as a private 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in) broad gauge railway that opened between Deloraine and Launceston to ship agricultural products to port for Victorian markets. Taken from Wikipedia.

Or and more likely:

The Far Western Line from Burnie to Myalla in two stages in 1913. In 1919, an isolated line was opened from the Bass Strait port of Stanley, south to Trowutta to tap the timber and farming industries. Two years later, this line was extended from Irishtown Junction west to the major centre of Smithton. In 1922, the missing section – from Myalla to Wiltshire – was completed.

From the 1980s, the dominant traffic on the line was outbound logs from Black River (just east of Wiltshire) with some supporting traffic to/from Stanley for the King Island shipping service, and to/from Smithton for the local processing industry. In 1990 the two extremities of the line were closed due to dwindling traffic, and outbound logs and silica stone, and inbound fertiliser traffic at Wiltshire became the sole reason for the line. Changing requirements and politics of the log traffic saw the remainder of the line closed to traffic in 1996. In 1999, the privatised ATN decided to reopen the line, again for fertiliser and log traffic, with the latter including a new destination of Hampshire mill on the old Emu Bay Railway line, by then also under ATN ownership. Changes within ATN and its parent companies result in the line again being closed due to low traffic levels.

At present the line is intact and generally clear form Burnie to Wiltshire, but is not available to traffic.

John Hardinge's book, "Tasmania Postal History: Post Offices and Their date stamps", TPS 2015 describes the 'T.P.O. Western Line' cancels on page 220.

There are 8 listings described from four types, only type 4 was in use in April, 1932 and there are three variations of this type.

I suspect it to be 4(iii) with a 'normal' (as opposed to small) 'N' in line. Other distinguishing features around the 'T P O'
part of the cancel cannot be seen on the stamp pictured. This type in use 7 Feb 1924 until 20 August, 1932. A December 1932 date is thought to be an error in the postmark.

This cancel rated 2R.

TPO services ended 31 August, 1932.

And thanks, again. Please keep fishing through these old posts...more is bound to come up!

I have only recently acquired the Hardinge book so the information was available for the first time to me and I knew you were still active, even though it was a bit of a thread mine.

Great to see information added to the knowledge base. !