Wombat Creek Tramways

The Racecourse is literally at the outskirts of Wombat Creek. It is right at the edge of the board with only room for a short section of a brick wall and the public entrance. To the left of the entrance is Racecourse Road and to the right is (in the future) ‘The Mug Punter Hotel’. A tram shelter will be erected at the front somewhat between the entrance and the hotel.

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The gate at the entrance is made from thin plastic strips glued to a black plastic comb and later painted black. It is a cheap solution, easy to do and the result looks quite good.

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Finally the signwriter has finished his job. Signs have been put up on the newspaper building on the corner of Victoria Street and Main Street. The footpath along Main Street willl be finished as soon as the temporary tram tracks are relayed.
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A prominent building on the south side of Victoria Street is the brewery. The top of the walls now reads ‘Wombat Creek Brewing Company’. Along Main Street the words are ‘Wombat Bitter’. All signs are made with a background of a ‘brick scan’ in PhotoShop and printed on 300 gr. paper.
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The sign advertising “WB” needs a repaint. The scaffolding is up, but the painters are gone to lunch. The scaffolding is made from parts of the fire escape, which is part of brewery kit, and 0.3 mm white plastic sheet.
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Victoria Street has
recently received a considerable update. The buildings on the North
side has been made more ‘Australian’. The bar is now known as ‘The
Wombat Cave’ and will in the future be a favourite meeting place for
the staff of the newspaper ‘W.C. Chronicle’. The paper has moved
into its new headquarters in the corner building. The sign-writer is
still busy painting the new signs, but passer-bys can read the latest
news, which are posted along the footpath: Geelong won the VFL
premiership; Kennedy has been assassinated in Houston, Valentina
Tereshkova

is the first woman in
Space; The Seekers play at ‘The Mug Punter Hotel’.

Next to the pub is the
hairdresser ‘Chez Alberto’ known for the line above the window: ‘Curl
Up And Dye,. The name of the watchmaker is taken from and old
Melbourne advertisement. The not so Australian half-timbered house
belongs to a photographer, J. F. Hurley. The small yellow building
now belongs to a shoe shop. The rather unusual typography of the sign
on the awning is a copy of an actual shoe shop sign.

The footpaths are a scan
of an old Vollmer cardboard with bricks. The scan has been added a
concrete curb in Photoshop and printed on 300 gr. paper before being
glued to 1.5 mm cardboard. The small cut-outs in the cardboard allow
rainwater to drain from the street.

The surface of the street
is made with black sandpaper, coarse 600.

The shelter at the
tram stop is modelled after a similar shelter at the corner
of
St Kilda & Commercial Roads
,
Melbourne. The window bars are made of fly-screen material. The track
near the tram stop
still needs to be filled in. It will probably be given a concrete
finish.

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The updated track plan shows the five tracks in the tram depot.

The summer holidays has seen new buildings coming to Victoria Street. As a matter of fact the buildings are not new at all. They are all more than 40 years old and from previous Danish layouts. In the time to come the buildings will be made more appropriate for an Australian streetscape. The building on the corner will be the future headquarters for the newspaper ‘W.C. Chronicle’.

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Street construction has started in ‘Victoria Street’. The photo shows the future terminus to the left and ‘Wombat Creek Brewery’ to the right. The surface of the street is made of 600 grit ‘wet and dry’ sandpaper, which has just the right colour and “roughness”, on top of three layers of cardboard. The footpath to the right and the platform to the left still need to be painted and textured.

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The area around the War Memorial has been “concreted”. The photo shows the view from the future ‘Memorial Parade’ with a tram on it’s way to ‘Victoria Street Terminus’.

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