Bob the Railway Dog Print Page

The sculpture commemorates Bob, the Railway Dog. 

In 1885, a puppy was among 200 other dogs in a sheep van bound from Terowie in South Australia's mid north, to the far north beyond Quorn, there to be used for exterminating rabbits.

The train stopped at Petersburg (now Peterborough) and Mr W S Ferry, the foreman porter at Petersburg, exchanged another dog for the puppy which was taken from the sheep van and immediately began his railway career.

He was from that moment on known as "Bob the Railway Dog"

Mr Ferry trained him as a pup to do all kinds of tricks and later when he was guard on the narrow guage Northern Lines took Bob thousands of miles with him in the guard's van, occassionally Bob rode with the engineman generally riding in the coal tender. Mr Ferry later became Assistant Stationmaster at Petersburg but Bob the Railway Dog continued to ride the trains.

For many years Bob rode engines all over the state, sometimes venturing interstate,  and he was guest of honor at the Melbourne Exhibition. Bob was also seen at Hawkesbury River stations ( 50 miles north of Sydney at Oodnadatta and in Western Australia, his last days were spent on the Silverton Tramway Co. where he died in the 1890s, his body was preserved and stood for many years in a glass case in the Exchange Hotel.

Bob's collar was kept in the office of the Australian Union of Locomotive Enginemen until it was kindly presented to the Mile End Railway Museum (now the National Railway Museum Port Adelaide) where it is now on display.

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Dedication