The Last of Its Kind: Queensland's No. 1009 Now on a 50c Coin

Not many locomotives can claim to be the most powerful steam engine ever to run in Queensland. No. 1009 can.

This 2025 50c Coloured Uncirculated Coin from the Royal Australian Mint's Steam Giants – Australian Rail Heritage collection features No. 1009 — a Beyer-Garratt articulated locomotive, and the last surviving example of its type from Queensland Railways.

No. 1009 entered service in the 1950s. It hauled heavy freight and also pulled The Midlander passenger service through central Queensland. Today it's preserved at the Workshops Rail Museum in Ipswich, on behalf of Queensland Rail.

The coin is an uncirculated finish, 31.51mm in diameter, 15.55 grams, copper-nickel. Mintage is capped at 35,000. Price is $17.50.

For rail collectors, this one is fairly self-explanatory. The Beyer-Garratt design has genuine fans — it's an unusual locomotive, built for heavy work on challenging track, and No. 1009 is the only Queensland example still around. That scarcity matters to collectors, and a mintage of 35,000 isn't huge.

The Steam Giants series covers locomotives from across Australian rail history. Coins can be collected individually — you don't need to buy the full series, though plenty of people end up doing that anyway.

Available now at mintcoinshop.com.au — operated by newsXpress Pty Ltd, an Australian company with more than 200 independently owned retail stores.