Wombat Creek Tramways

Being on school holidays usually means at least a few days of travelling but not this year. Thanks to COVID-19 I am confined to the house and garden. Which of course gives me time to read books, to mow the lawn, to repot a lot of plants etc. Fortunately I also have time to work on Wombat Creek Tramways. A few minor tasks have been accomplished. Among them some constructions at the Racecourse.
An odd-shaped, walled-in area between the entrance to the Racecourse and Racecourse Road has been a bit of ‘problem’. From the street-side it looks fine but sitting at the edge of the lay-out the area itself needed some attention. The solution was the construction of a few stables for the racehorses.
The stables are made from cardboard with corrugated roofing from leftover plastic card. The horses come from my childhood train layout, so they will be around 45 years old. Probably too old for racing. To give them a bit of shade during the hot summer months a cheap tree has been planted after being improved with extra foliage and colouring to reduce the bright green.

The water tower next to the tram barn in Elwood was a prominent feature. It is somewhat unusual with a water tower at an electric tramway, but a fire in 1907 destroyed the barn and the entire fleet. Perhaps the water tower was later installed in case a new fire should break out. Anyway – Wombat Creek Tramways now have their own water tower. The first photo shows the tower under construction. The tower itself is made from wooden I-beams from ‘North-eastern Scale Lumber Co.’ The beams come in 11” lengths and are easily cut with a sharp knife. The base for the water tank is a square of balsa wood. The tank consists of two caps from juice containers. The black top is another left-over from the Heljan Brewery kit.

After additional details like reinforcements at the joints, water pipes and a ladder the towers is painted ‘metal grey’ before the water tank is added. Like the water tower in Elwood the tank is clad in an advert for Peters Ice cream.

The third photo shows the view from the front of the tram barn. Road numbers have been added to the barn and ‘speed restriction’ (5 mph) is in place at the entrance. More road signs will be put up in the near future.

Life in Wombat Creek is going on nice and quiet. Not of new-build for the time being. Only to more ‘major’ structures are planned – a water tower behind the old tram shed and probably Leaky’s plumbing will get a building on a vacant spot next to the Mug Punter Hotel.

Ray Knott’s Joinery is housed in a building which once was part of the Brewery. The building resembles the Brewery building. In fact the walls and windows are left-overs from the Heljan brewery kit. A wood storage (partly visible in the centre of the photo) is made from balsa wood and a small piece of corrugated iron (well, corrugated plastic). The wood on the top is small strips of balsa. The hardwood at the lower shelf is strips of bark from a gumtree.

The parking lot is a bit uneven because of tree roots (read ‘bad glueing’) and appears worse on the photos than in real life.

The second photo shows more of the area near the tram shed. Concrete still needs to be poured between the rails, and the lamppost should be adjusted to a more vertical position. I will give the council workers a call!

During summer holidays quite a bit of work was done on the lay-out of Wombat Creek. Most of the ‘projects’ still needs the finishing touch, but the photo shows one being almost finished.

The garden around the blue fibro house deliberately looks somewhat un-kept because the family has other interests. The newest addition to the garden are the two tall gum-trees. They are made from florist wire, ‘no-more-gaps’ filler, some paint and Woodland Scenic material. They came up all-right ever the canopy is a bit wide. The cubby house is made from gum-tree bark and a piece of corrugated iron (plastic). The bark has the right texture and colour, so no weathering was needed. The rope ladder hanging from the cubby house is a very thin slice of corflute panel. A dive into my wife’s sewing supplies gave me the materials for the hammock. To finish the scene I only need to find a person for the hammock and a child to climb up the ladder.

Around six months a finished the two fibrohouses. Well, almost finished the green one. The roof over the entrance didn’t get its supports,which are set on angles. I considered that to bee too ‘tricky’, so the project ended up in the ‘too-hard-basket’. But the fact is – thought is worse than reality.

Over the summer holidays I have done quite a bit around Wombat Creek and couldn’t no longer avoid the green fibrohouse. And of course – the job was done in about 30 minutes. A length of balsa wood, six pieces of green stem wire, super-glue and some Woodland Scenic for the flowers did the trick. It is a little difficult to photograph the house in situ, but I think it came out all right.

I haven’t done a proper drawing of the lay-out, as it stands at the moment. Since all tracks are down there is no real purpose for a drawing, so I’ll give you a photo of the control panel instead.

Obviously the black lines are the tracks. The reason for three tracks going right to the left edge is the tramways will eventually be extended depending on time and room. The necessary points and crossing are in storage.
The red push buttons control the points. Three points are still not connected and one points is unfortunately very unsteady.
The black push buttons control the power to the tram-stops. The tracks are under constant power and the trams will come to a stop, unless the black buttons are activated.
The slide switches are normally one, but they make it possible to stop a tram between stops.

Everybody in Wombat Creek is busy getting ready for Christmas, but the council workers have managed to plant some mature bottle-brushes along the back of the Memorial Park.

A closer inspection reveals the shrubs are made from sisal rope, brown paint and Woodland Scenics foliage and flowers.

On behalf of all the people – young and old – in Wombat Creek: MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Most tramways will have scrubber cars and Wombat Creek Tramways is no different. ‘Real’ tramways will convert old trams into scrubber cars but Wombat Creek has no surplus of old cars, so I came up with another solution – a diesel locomotive and a tank wagon. I know it is not a solution, you will find at an Australian tramway, but it will serve the purpose here in Wombat Creek. The tracks will be cleared of dust!

On a holiday in Austria some 40 years ago I bought the Kleinbahn locomotive. It has not had a lot of use being in storage most of the time. The wheels and gears had become stuck but a dose of WD40 made it running again. The number ’56’ comes from a small Victorian shunter, V56, with the same wheel configuration and an almost similar look. It was once used to shunt Metro trains through a washing complex. And yes, the gauge is not right! You may think the colours are the old VR livery, but it is not. They symbolise Wombat Creek with the blue being the ‘creek’ and the yellow being the gold.

The tanker is an old Jouef track cleaner. The decals on both the locomotive and scrubber are home-made and printed on an ink-jet printer. The first attempt didn’t do too good. I chose to print without a background colour (transparent) which made the decals very visible. The second attempt with a blue background is far better but not perfect. The colours could have been a bit brighter, but perhaps they have faded in the Aussie sun! Another ‘issue’ was the white print in ‘Scrubber no. 1’. Of course ‘white’ on a printer is ‘no ink’, so it turned up transparent. Well, that was sorted with white paint before the decals were attached.