Wombat Creek Tramways

After a few days with the focus on the narrow gauge railway it is time to relax and enjoy the progress.

A watermill used to pump water into the water tank but it looks like, it has seen better days. It is built from scratch, A bit fiddly but it came out all right. Of course it is an example of the ‘Southern Cross’ windmill.

The water tank is now filled by a diesel pump housed in the little shed. The water comes straight from the creek through the cast iron pipe. The shed worker is having a little time off trying his luck with his fishing rod. The pole with its little cabinet is clearly inspired from the photo in a previous post.

The fourth photo shows the new pavers along the big shed. The steps from the platform are still in the making. The oil drums on the NQR wagon are branded ‘Golden Fleece’. The colours are right but not sure, if the oil company ever had drums this size.

The steam locomotives at the narrow gauge mining railway need coal and water.

The water tank is made from a piece of corrugated styrene shaped around the cork from a bottle of mead. The base is balsa wood and the legs a four length of rails. The ladder is made from a thin slice of corflute. The inlet is a short length of wire. The water is 1 mm clear table protector and the outlet is a bit of cord from a Venetian blind.

The coal stage is 1.5 mm balsa wood, a piece of ladder from Plastruct and real coal from the State Coal Mine in Wonthaggi.

The new shed is almost finished. Only the ‘concrete’ floor is missing. The little shed is big enough for the locomotive parked just outside, but the main ‘tenant’ will be the small shunter.

The design of the shed is inspired by the narrow gauge shed in Colac, Victoria. The Victorian Railways opened a narrow gauge railway between Colac and Beech Forest in 1902 (later extended to Crowes in 1911). The railway was closed in stages between 1954 and 1962. I like the unusual curved roof and decided it was worth a model. Finding appropriate drawings and photos was difficult with the shed long gone. All I had was photos like this from https://www.westonlangford.com/ .

The model is far from exact but probably close enough to be recognised by people who have seen the real thing.

Living up to the name of the day and staying out of the heat (high 30’s) I have be labouring on a new shed for the narrow gauge railway. The photos show the result of today’s effort.

The tracks surrounding the turntable are down with a few adjustment still to come. The longer turntable allows for two extra lengths of track with can be used to store one wagon each. The old turntable are stored for future scrapping, which of course will not really take place.

The chief engineer has purchased a new turntable for the mining railway. The previous home-build turntable was the right size for the railway but never worked as intended. It couldn’t do a full turn, the rails were not centred and the drive was unreliable. After 18 months of trial and error the time has come to scrap the little turntable. Instead a larger turntable of the brand ‘Peco’ has been installed. The new turntable appears too big for such a small mining railway, but the size is also an improvement. As seen, the small shunter and a wagon fit the turntable, which gives more opportunities for sidings and shunting. The tracks to and from the turntable still have to be fixed. The old turntable will still be a feature. With the high number of hours spent on it, I can’t throw it in the bin.

From this:

To this:

in 30 minutes!

I hope the chief engineer has a plan!