The earliest passenger trains ran during the day, but night-time travel became more common as networks expanded and patronage grew. Passengers in the nineteenth century could count on little light at night: kerosene-fuelled lamps were so dim that reading was usually impossible, they emitted unpleasant odours, and breezes through open windows often extinguished the light. Railways in Europe and North America experimented with new forms of lighting and by the 1890s a number of Australasian colonial railways had taken up one of the most promising innovations: Pintsch gas, a form of compressed gas invented by Julius Pintsch of Berlin.

This paper will examine the introduction of Pintsch gas lamps to Australasia, and its usage up to World War I. It will demonstrate that this innovation improved the travelling environment for passengers and provided considerable savings for the railways. Pintsch gas had to be produced at new gas-making plants, and decentralised networks faced challenges to recharge carriages used on remote lines, but the gas produced a superior light for a lower cost than kerosene, offsetting the initial costs. Although the paper will take a broad Australasian perspective, it will refer particularly to Pintsch gas usage in New Zealand, Queensland, and Victoria.