Wombat Creek Tramways

An empty vitamin D container, a top from a milk carton, a worm drive and a 50 mm bolt with nuts. Could this – with a few more bits and pieces – become the long needed turntable for the mining railway? I hope the next few days will show.

The bluestone retaining wall along the creek has been erected. Only the capping stones at the top are missing. The photo shows the purpose of a relative long wall. It sits along and hides the control panels.

Next step would be the second wall/pier supporting the bridge, but..

To get easy access to the dirt road along the creek, it better wait, but…

The dirt road will cross the railway on the other side, but…

The tracks will have to be put down before the road, but…

The tracks will cross the creek, so a small bridge has do be built first!

Complicated? Not really if you get the order right.

The access road to the Big Nugget Mine is almost completed with sand from Phillip Island, cloured ‘teddy bear fur’ and potting mix from – well a bag. The potholes are topped with clear PVA. As seen on the photo the road is in a poor condition. On his way back from the mine Mr. Howard had a minor accident with his ute slipping into the creek. The railway to and from the mine is definitely needed when the mine is fully operational.

The bluestone retaining wall along the creek has been erected. Only the capping stones at the top are missing. The photo shows the purpose of a relative long wall. It sits along and hides the control panels.

Next step would be the second wall/pier supporting the bridge, but..

To get easy access to the dirt road along the creek, it better wait, but…

The dirt road will cross the railway on the other side, but…

The tracks will have to be put down before the road, but…

The tracks will cross the creek, so a small bridge has do be built first!

Complicated? Not really if you get the order right.

Making progress! Some tracks have been put down in the Big Nugget Mine. The original track plan has just a loop without a siding. This will give the locomotive a lot of waiting time whilst wagons are emptied or, as an alternative, a lot of light engines going to and from the mine. To avoid this the chief engineer has decided to purchase more points. This is the reason for not completing the loop at the moment, but with the ‘outer’ track already in place, work on the dirt road can progress.

How the locomotive got onto the track is a mystery with no rail connection past the points!

The chief engineer of the mining railway was advised a steam locomotive was up for auction. The description said ‘used, but in running condition’. Until now the fleet of locomotives has consisted of a small 0-6-0T and a larger 0-6-2T. The smaller locomotive is fine for shunting around the main rail yard, but it will struggle with larger trains up to the mines. Therefore the chief engineer put a small offer in for a second 0-6-2T and to his surprise he won the auction.
The locomotive has arrived. Put on the tracks it would not move an inch! An electrical connection had to be re-adjusted. Further work has to be done. The locomotive has a bad habit of stalling at the points. The photo shows the recent arrival between the two older locomotives.

The bluestone retaining wall along the creek has been erected. Only the capping stones at the top are missing. The photo shows the purpose of a relative long wall. It sits along and hides the control panels.

Next step would be the second wall/pier supporting the bridge, but..

To get easy access to the dirt road along the creek, it better wait, but…

The dirt road will cross the railway on the other side, but…

The tracks will have to be put down before the road, but…

The tracks will cross the creek, so a small bridge has do be built first!

Complicated? Not really if you get the order right.

The above text is from a previous post. The bridge has been adapted from a drawing of Victorian Railways’ ‘Superstructure for Plated “I” Beam Bridge’. Not a huge project.

Part of The Mining Railway is up and running! The control panel (version 2. Version 1 was relocated to the bin) is in place and wired to the tracks around the explosives factory, sawmill and goods shed.

The entire fleet of locomotives, carriages and wagons has tested the tracks without issues apart from some bad connections in a couple of the points. The turntable is still missing making shunting quite difficult.

The temporay buffer stop is to prevent the trains from doing a major drop to the floor!

The mining railway is slowly coming along but not without changes to the latest track plan The white circle represents a small turntable. The pit for the turntable is currently sitting on the shelf under the baseboard. It is a cap for a 90 mm storm-water drain. Also on the bench a trusted transformer given to me as a Christmas present in 1973. Plenty of power to run the railway. The yellow tramcar in the background is a sentimental anachronism being a typical Copenhagen tram.

The narrow gauge railway will cross the Creek twice. The first bridge is a short skeleton bridge inspireed by drawings from Victorian Railways – Way and Works Branch. Thr bridge is situated close to the backdrop, which is a challenge. How to hide the fact the creek is coming straight out of the sky? Hopefully some well-placed treeferns will do the trick!