Wombat Creek Tramways

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This time the photographer has moved to Victoria Square catching a photo of the corner building at Victoria Street/ East Street. From left to right you will find ‘Gilbert Electrical’, ‘Flowers on the Corner’ and ‘Boyson Taylor and Habit-maker’.

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The front of the building is inspired of 89 Queen Street, Warragul. To fit the lay-out the front has to be ‘bent’! While the name of the flower shop may been quite obvious, the name of the electrician is taken from a similar business in the town, where I grew up a long time ago. The tailor as come around to make sure Wombat Creek has place providing decent clothing to the male population. The ladies will be well serviced by Manning and Co, if the sign of the rooftop can been taken for par.

After almost 6 months of construction a new building has appeared in Victoria Street. In fact a whole row of buildings has been erected along Victoria Street and East Street.

In Victoria Street the ‘Golden Dragon’ is open for business. The restaurant is situated in the former Hotel Diggers Rest, which closed its doors 6 years ago (More information in W.C. Chronicle no. 3). The law firm Lawson and Partners has also moved into the ground floor of the building, whilst the top floor is still empty apart from some storage space used by the brewery.

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The front of the building is inspired from a shop front in Queen Street in Warragul.

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The rusty and bent hotel sign on the front of the building shows its age and recent neglect. On the wall along the alley next to the brewery the words ‘Hotel Diggers Rest’ are just visible above the sign showing the way to ‘Ray Knott’s Joinery’.

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Photos of the other buildings in the row will be uploaded soon.

The originally idea with the newspaper W.C. Chronicle was to tell an interesting story from Wombat Creek once a month. Unfortunately this hasn’t been the case so far. The progress of Wombat Creek Tramways is far slower than expected – due to my civil work taking to much of my time and other ‘distractions’.

But now there is a story to tell. A story of the former Hotel Diggers Rest in Victoria Street.

Enjoy reading W.C. Chronicle No. 3

A ‘new’ building has quite
unexpected been erected in Wombat Creek. An old shed from a former
Danish model layout has found its place across road 1 in the
Tramways’ Depot area. The shed will be referred to as ‘The Old Shed’
when the future shed over roads 3 – 5 is constructed.

To find enough space for
the shed the track in road 2 had to be relayed with a slight curve
getting around the left corner of the building. The closeness to the
street on the right has an impact on the footpath, which has to be
left omitted in the future road construction.

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During the last 8 weeks of
so the main activities in Wombat Creek have taken place near Victoria
Square. The block of shops on the corner of East Street and Victoria
Street are slowly reaching the finishing stage – roofs are
installed and signage finalised. Soon the official town photographer, J. F. Hurley will come
around and do a few shots.

Meanwhile ‘Woody’s
Timberyard’ has opened its business at East Street next to the petrol
station. To be more precisely the timberyard has “re-opened”. It
is stated on the fence that Woody’s has nailed it since 1885. Perhaps
the timberyard has been rebuilt after a fire. Anyway it is back in
business though a few features need to be added. E.g. a crane to lift
the heavy timber in and out of the shed. Because the lay-out hasn’t
been fitted with a background yet the low-profile buildings at the
back cannot be put in their final location. Therefore the crane is
still on the waiting list.

The fence in front of
‘Woody’s Timberyard’ is a copy of an existing fence. It is (was?) to
be found I front of the timberyard ‘Baagøe & Riber’ in
Svendborg, Denmark. I regularly passed the six running men and the
little hole in the fence with the words “have a look” (“kig
ind” in Danish) on my way to and from work.

The horse-drawn tram to
the left is one of three belonging to the heritage fleet of Wombat
Creek Tramways. How it is possible to have a heritage fleet at a
tramway under construction is a bit of a puzzle!

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Believe it or not – no news on the website doesn’t mean nothing is going on in Wombat Creek! The little town is bursting with activities. Most people are busy prospecting for gold and occasionally the struck luck and get rich. The wealth is then invested in real estate property, which is clearly seen along East Street and Victoria Square. A whole row of buildings are under construction including a furniture store, a fashion outlet, a goldsmith, a electrical store, a florist, a men’s tailor, a lawyer’s office and ‘The Golden Dragon’. Of course the rather large Chinese community in Wombat Creek will put its mark on the dining scene in the town.

All buildings are made out of cardboard and heavily influenced by a similar row of buildings along Queen Street, Warragul. It is not exact copies but they should be recognisable though one building had to be ‘bent’, fitting the corner of East Street and Victoria Street. At the current state all walls and windows are in place. Next step is installing doors and window displays before roofing will take place.

In the yard behind ‘Wombat Creek Brewing Company’ a building will house a joinery and cabinetmaking business. The walls of the building is made of three spare wall panels from the brewery kit. Perhaps the joiner is renting the building from the brewery. As with the shops in East Street walls and windows are in place. Only the roof is missing before the building is ready for business.

Also along East Street you will find Woody’s Timber Yard. So far only the fence surrounding the yard is in place but the low relief buildings are drawn and printed. It shouldn’t take long before they are erected.

One building which has been finished for quite a few months, is ‘The Golden Fleece’ service station. It is a cardboard kit from Rakem Emporium. It has been modified slightly and has come up rather fine – even it stands a little tall for its position on the lay-out. The fence to the right of the building is from my own backyard! Well, it is based on a photo of the backyard fence, so it is a combination of cardboard and balsa wood. The photo also shows the front of a Danish tram from Copenhagen – of course completely out of place but a reminder of my heritage.

Hopefully the buildings under construction will be finished in the near future (all depending on other activities in the household) and photos will be uploaded.

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A new building in Wombat Creek is Campbell Terrace and it is a sort of a blunder. Too many windows too close to each other. It should really be demolished and replaced by a new building, but unfortunately Campbell Terrace is heritage listed (read: too much time has been invested in the construction). A small plague on the front wall commemorate the building as the birthplace of the almighty mayor of Wombat Creek, Alfred C. Campbell.

Today the building houses the clinics of dentist Dr. Molar and surgeon Dr. A.K. Paine. The lady in the upper left window is not trying escape her dentist but having a chat with a friend walking past.

The tram in the photo
seems to be completely out of place. The original is from the long
gone tramways of Copenhagen, Denmark. Today the same tram can be
found at Skjoldenæsholm Tram Museum, Denmark. The reason for a
Danish tram at an Australian layout is nostalgia myself being Danish.

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The cast iron urinal in Victoria Square is modelled after an original in Queensberry Street, North Melbourne. It is one of more than forty, most with two stalls, erected by the Melbourne City Council between 1903 and 1918. The structures employed a prefabricated system which enabled the urinals to be assembled on site or dismantled and relocated if required.

The original cast iron urinals were made using a prefabricated system of interlocking cast iron panels and posts. The 600 mm square cast iron panels slotted between 70 mm diameter cast iron columns, fixed at the base to bluestone footings. At the centre of each cast iron panel is an eight-point star enclosing a smaller star, the whole bordered by a key pattern. The North Melbourne urinal is the only surviving one with four stalls, all of the others having only two.

The model is made from an internet photo manipulated in Photoshop and printed on 250 gr. Paper. The roofing is a small plastic rectangle of HO corrugated ‘iron’. At the moment the urinal is placed in Victoria Square covering a couple of too visible joints in the pavement.

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