Bob the Railway Dog

Tweet

While on our holiday in South Australia and the Northern Territory recently we came across this sculpture in Petersburg. This little dog, Bob, became the railway mascot renowned throughout a wide area for his love of travelling on trains in particular with occasional sorties on trams and even Murray paddle-steamers. As a youngster he was rounded up in Adelaide in 1883 with many other strays and transported north, the idea being that the dogs would be released in areas where rabbits had reached plague proportions. Whose preposterous idea this was I have no idea. Bob was adopted by a railway guard from Terowie, William Terry. They moved to Petersburg a few months late and Bob began travelling on trains first with William but later on his own as the mood took him. He made both long and short trips, travelling as far afield as Sydney, Melbourne, Oodnadatta, Broken Hill, Mt Gambier and more. Bob died in 1895 and was mourned by the travelling public. The statue was created by South Australian sculptor Silvio Apponyi. Many years later, the kelpie Red Dog, achieved much the same status in Western Australia although he preferred travelling by motor vehicle.