West Coast Wilderness Railway, Heritage rack railway in Tasmania, Australia

The West Coast Wilderness Railway is a 34.5-kilometre 1,067 mm gauge rack railway from Queenstown to Regatta Point near Strahan, rebuilt on the Mount Lyell Mining & Railway Company alignment. It uses the Abt rack and pinion system on gradients reaching 1 in 15. A green side-tank steam locomotive with a red "ABT RAILWAY" nameplate stands on a turntable with green railings and a wooden deck.

This line was built in the late 1800s to move copper ore from Queenstown mines to the port for export. After decades of abandonment, restoration efforts brought the route back to life using original locomotives from that mining era.

This railway represents how local communities have transformed an abandoned industrial route into a living connection with their past. Today, the operation provides meaningful employment while allowing visitors to experience the working methods of an earlier era.

The line runs 34.5 km between Queenstown and Regatta Point at Strahan on a 1,067 mm gauge track, with the steepest gradient at 1 in 15, so trains are weight-limited. The route follows the original alignment except at the Quarter Mile Bridge near Teepookana, replaced south of the old crossing after the 1974 flood. The Queenstown terminus stands on the site of the original station yard, and the Regatta Point station has been renovated.

The rack system was devised by Carl Roman Abt, and the line's steepest gradient is 1 m in 15 m (66.7‰). The last train in 1963 was hauled by ABT 1, the same locomotive that pulled the first train in 1896. ABT 2, long displayed at the Tasmanian Transport Museum in Glenorchy, returned to service in 2023 after a major rebuild.