Wombat Creek is a H0 (1:87) scale model of a fictional town situated somewhere in the Victorian Goldfields, Australia.
The time is 1963. Geelong wins the VFL Championship against Hawthorn (109– 60). John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas. ValentinaTeresjkova is the first woman in Space. The men behind The Great Train Robbery get £2.6 million from a Royal Mail train heading from Glasgow to London.
The town consists of several buildings. The “Wombat Creek Bank and Gold Exchange” is a prominent building in the town centre. You will also find several other commercial buildings; among them the daily newspaper“W.C. Chronicle”(colloquial known as the "Toilet Paper") and “Wombat Creek Brewing Company” (Famous for the “Wombat Bitter”). “The Big Nugget Gold Mine” is situated at the Western outskirts of town near the small Chinatown. The War Memorial is in a small park along East Street.
The town’s mayor Alfred Campbell together with his son David Campbell owns several businesses, including the bank, the pub and the newspaper. AC/DC basically run the town and make most decisions on behalf of the rest of Wombat Creek’s residents, who, on the other hand, are too busy with their own businesses.
The mayor’s latest initiative is Wombat Creek Tramways. Wombat Creek doesn’t really need a tram system, but AC reckons tramways will improve the town’s reputation. Partly because of limited funds the tramways' construction and rolling stock depend heavily on second-hand requirements from other Australian and overseas tramways.
A common problem (for me at least) is lack of space. The Big Nugget Mine will be limited to the area bordered by the slopes seen in this photo.
It will work out with the interior tramway handling the firewood for the steam boiler, the tailings from the stamper and the explosives for the underground mine.
The chief engineer has again been spending money. This time an unusual purchase for a gold mine – an old steam roller. He is certainly not going to start flatting the surface around the mine. Instead the roller will be taken apart. Only the boiler will be used at the mine. It will be installed in the power house powering the poppet head and the rock crusher (battery).
The engineer’s main headache: How to get the roller to the mine site!
With the Bellcord finished and positioned next to the fire station my attention has turned to the tunnel entrances for the mining railway. The entrance near the bridge/creek could be done at any time, but the position of the entrance near the fire station was more ‘precarious’, depending on the placement of the fire station. Because of the rather short railway tracks around the mine every millimetre counts. The further ‘back’ the entrance could be set, the better.
I have been asked for a few photos of the wildlife around the railway. Here they are!
PS: Sorry for the shadows!
Four sets of bogies arrived from Hattons today. The size of the box is quite impressive! The bogies will be used under the powder (explosives) wagon and the two brake vans with one set as spare.
Two more wagons have arrived at the narrow gauge railway. They stand out with their European look. But they were cheap! $8.50 for the two of them!
Only a joint in the middle of the floor reveals they are shortened versions of a general Liliput open wagon. From a side-on view the shortening is not visible. The wagons will be put into service as they are, but at a later stage they will be rebuilt.
The four open NQR wagons have been finished. The colour is very close to the colour used at the Victorian Railways’ narrow gauge railways. The numbers are 21 – 24, with the 10’s reserved for covered wagons (only the powder wagon is planned at the moment). The one digit numbers will be used for carriages and brake vans.
The wagons are rather light and prone to derailments. I have cut some steel to add as weight. This makes the wagons far more stable but unfortunately too heavy for the locomotives to pull. I will reduce the steel and load the wagons with firewood and other mining necessities.
The narrow gauge mining railway is up and running again. As mentioned in an earlier post, the original siding at the Big Nugget Mine wasn’t long enough for three wagons.
By moving the points into the siding closer to the entry points the siding can take three wagons. Now it is possible to shunt two loaded wagons and a brake van for two empties and the same brake van.
