Lou Rae

{{Short description|Australian historian}}

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Lou Rae is a Tasmanian author and historian of the West Coast of Tasmania.

His publications have included articles about Rosebery, Tasmania,{{Citation | author1=Rae, Lou | title=A window on Rosebery : a pictorial review of the 100 years in and around the environs of Rosebery on Tasmania's rugged West Coast, 1893-1993 | year=1994 | publication-date=1994 | publisher=L. Rae | isbn=978-0-9592098-4-6 }} the Emu Bay Railway{{Citation | author1=Rae, Lou | title=The Emu Bay Railway : VDL Company to Pasminco | year=1991 | publication-date=1991 | publisher=L. Rae | isbn=978-0-9592098-2-2 }} Queenstown, Tasmania{{Cite web|url=http://www.federation100.tas.gov.au/writersprogram/writers/lou_rae.html|archive-url=https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20010403130000/http://www.federation100.tas.gov.au/writersprogram/writers/lou_rae.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=2001-04-03|title = 03 Apr 2001 - Writers Program - Lou Rae - Archived Website}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}} and the Mount Lyell Railway otherwise known as the Abt Railway,{{Citation | author1=Rae, Lou | title=The Mt Lyell Mining and Railway Co. Ltd : a pictorial history 1893-1993 | year=1993 | publication-date=1993 | publisher=L. Rae | isbn=978-0-9592098-3-9 }} as well as the Sandfly Colliery Tramway.{{Citation | author1=Rae, Lou. An introduction to the Sandfly colliery tramway | author2=Whitham, Lindsay. The Sandfly Coal Mine and tramway | author3=Chynoweth, R. Wayne. The locomotives of the Sandfly and Catamaran tramways | author4=Light Railway Research Society of Australia | title=Sandfly colliery tramway, Tasmania | publication-date=1988 | publisher=Light Railway Research Society of Australia | url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/158847064 | accessdate=11 January 2014 }}

His publications about railways on the west coast of Tasmania have gone into multiple editions, as well as modifying for the changes in the fate of the railways.An example is the range of titles from 1988 to the 2010s about the Abt Railway

He also has been a postgraduate student at the University of Tasmania, culminating in his 2005 PhD thesis about the Mount Lyell area.{{Citation | author1=Rae, Louis Gould | title=The lost province : exploration, isolation, innovation and domination in the Mount Lyell Region, 1859-1935 | publication-date=2005 | url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/34479081 | accessdate=21 June 2015 }}{{Citation | title=[Biographical cuttings on Lou Rae, author and historian, containing one or more cuttings from newspapers or journals] | publication-date=1900 | url=http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/35916585 | accessdate=11 January 2014 }}

His session at The Unconformity event in Queenstown in October 2016 addresses the issues of sources and historiography of the Western Tasmanian region.{{cite web |url=http://theunconformity.com.au/events/new-discoveries-old-traps-researching-west-coasts-past/ |title=New Discoveries, Old Traps {{!}} The Unconformity |website=theunconformity.com.au |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161010212305/http://theunconformity.com.au/events/new-discoveries-old-traps-researching-west-coasts-past/ |archive-date=2016-10-10}}