31 August  2008

National News

ATHRA Alerts

Victorian News

The Association  continued its visits to country Locations  in April when it visited the Bellarine  Railway  at  Queenscliff. At the conclusion of the  meeting held in a conference room of one of the town's largest   hotel, the railway  showed members  over the workshops and then  took us on a short  trip by railcar  to inspect  the new carriage shed.

The impact of the  new accreditation requirements  of the State Government on Heritage Rail is hotting up  as the deadline  for the commencement  of the new rules comes closer. Unless all groups are re-accredited by  30 June 2009 they  will not  be allowed to operate.

News from our Members

The Bellarine Railway 

 

The  new Rolling Stock shed is  complete at Lakers Siding and this now  will provide the railway  with  the facility of  keeping its carriage stock and other equipment out  of the sea air. The  next  stage  is to lay  the track into  the shed and this  is now  under way.

 

Another notable mile stone is the fabrication and erection of a new smoke box tube plate for the boiler of T251. Once the  tube plate was fabricated it was riveted to  the  boiler shell. Initially, the plate was bolted to  the shell  and the rivets were placed in a circular  manner replacing every  second bolt to  ensure that  the  plate was distortion free.

 

The  new platform at Swan Bay  had great use when it was used as  a park and ride facility  for  the Seafood Feast held on the Queenscliff foreshore. Over  200 return journeys were  made. The  platform is some 2 km from the town  and  both  rail motors were  used in multiple unit.

 

This was possible with  the return to  service  of DP28 after  a long refurbishment. Multiple uniting with  DP29 provides the railway with 100 seats for such  shuttles. The railway has  received the frame  of South Australian Dolly Varden guards van 7550 which it had previously owned. The  van was purchased in 1982 in unusable condition and then went to Puffing Billy who  found that  they  could  not use it  either. The body  was scrapped and the frame made available to  the Bellarine railway who hope to  rebuild a new van on the frame in the future.

 

Carriage DB46 has  been  dual braked to operate on both  air and vacuum braking. Carriage ABL14 has  been  restored and  is  now complete. Locomotive T251 has been placed in the workshop siding to  allow  its restoration to  proceed .

 

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Daylesford Spa Country Railway

 

The railway had as its guest  the Hon Justin Madden, Minister  for  Planning in his capacity as Heritage Minister. He was visiting to  view  the work of the Heritage Care volunteers and to  inspect  the  progress on the restoration of 53RM. The  Minister's attention was drawn to  the  need to provide  covered accommodation for the railway's rolling stock to guard against  the weather and to  deter vandals.

 

A major effort on the track in Daylesford resulted in the replacement of 78 point timbers, the re-seating  of 3 point  levers, the  foot crossing re-laid and a bent point blade straightened.

 

A new male toilet and lamp room are  being built at  a cost of $102,000 with  a grant of $68,000 from the State Government with the balance of funding from the Shire Council, the DSCR together  with  work in kind  by the railway. The  present  toilets will become the female toilet  on completion  of the  male toilet.

 

The railway  suffered with  a spate  of  broken windows and a large amount  of time has  been  spent  in repairing the damage. Rail Motor 91RM has commenced the  long awaited roof repairs. The  motor  has  been in service on the railway  for 18 years and has travelled over  50,000 km  on the CHTR.

 

32RM: Work is continuing and the  newly fitted ceiling panels have been fully painted in gloss white. This allowed the re-fitment of the repaired/repainted lighting wiring conduit and the light fittings themselves. With completion of the ceiling the curved panels above the luggage rack were able to be fitted.  32RM activity of late has been the complete re-wire of the drivers No.2 end control console and re-wiring and repair of the No 2 end marker lights. Some of the missing throttle control components have also been made.

 

63RM: This car is running well. Apart from suffering from broken windows the only problem to surface was some slight coolant leaks on the RC engines.

 

DRC40: Running on its monthly Silver Streak commitments with no real issues. The car has re-developed its occasional transmission "slipping" problem.

 

2HH: All of the 4 doors have now been rebuilt by our Green Reserve volunteers. The final re-built door waits re-fitment.

 

74RM: Work is going on  with  the major car body rebuild. This has mainly involved completing the large amount of straightening/filling work around the rear body section.

 

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Diamond Valley Railway

The  recent  very fierce wind storms that  Victoria  experienced late  in April brought down  a number  of trees over  the railway. The wind was so  fierce that  it was necessary  to  close the line to prevent  injury  to  passengers and staff. At  least  4 large trees had  to be removed together with other wind blown debris.

A large amount  of  works have  been  done  over the last  six months  and among  the things done was the  pouring of wing walls at  the rear of Sanctuary  Storage. Track has  been lifted and re-laid,  new points  installed, and the relaying  of six track panels completed. This  work concluded the relaying  of the inner circle track. The Outer Circle  line relaying  is also  complete.

A new experimental pedestrian  path across the tracks has  been built between  the Clubrooms  and the approach  to  Pine Creek. Ongoing aligning and ballasting  of track is proceeding as needed.

The  new Sanctuary  headhunt is  troublesome due to its short length  and is  being investigated to see what  can be  done to  rectify  this. The whole  line  is suffering from excessive rail wear and experiments are continuing to control this and  the excessive wear on wheels. A discussion paper  on this  has been issued. The railway  carried 100,000 passengers last  year which is the second highest number of  passengers on a Heritage  line  in Australia.

The railway  made a submission to  Nillumbik Shire  Council  suggesting that  the Council  consider strengthening their  proposals  for the improvement of facilities in the Eltham Lower  Park where the railway is situated.

With  the building  of the  new storage at  Sanctuary Cove the  old carriage shed has  been demolished. As usual  the engines are  being well maintained with  the three steam engines  subject  to  boiler  tests. A new  engine G 527 has  received trial running.

 

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Friends of the North Australian Railway  at Adelaide River.

 

The railway has  their  own  web site now and this  can be found from the ATR website. Go to  the Adelaide River page and click on the  links.

 

The precinct at  Adelaide River  had a good  number  of visitors  for the  picnic day this year  which is held in August  each  year. Earlier in the  month  150 visitors in the annual Rejex Rally visited  and 150 people were  fed  by  the railway.

The railway  has made a great  effort to clear the right  of way  of the former North Australian Railway. Set out below  is a report  of work  done.

"North of the big bridge #139 good progress was being made with the removal of trees that were either growing through our track or very close to it.  Peter Poole wielded his 1800 watt Makita electric chainsaw in sensational fashion to down some very stout trees (like African Mahogany).  Jack Devlin hauled the logs to the loading position using his 1800 cc Quad bike.  From there we used Jack’s trailer to take them to the dump.  The NAR track is now beautifully clear for more than 200m.  Another Working Bee will see it cleared back to the bridge.  Its many thanks to Peter and Adina Poole and Jack Devlin for this great effort.  Also thanks to Wayne Parsons for the loan of Wayne’s chainsaw."

Short Tom progress.

"In the last few days the protective shelter for the Short Toms has been improved by completing the painting of the frame (with “Machinery Grey”) and progressing the work on the side walls which are open at the bottom for light and air.  Some Alcinite type clear sheeting would help if anyone has a spare sheet or two.

Leo Izod did some good work in straightening a set of end stairs that had been seriously bent on Short Tom #86.  And a renovated set of stairs was fitted to Short Tom #450."

 

Altogether  a huge  project  to  retain this  part  of Australia's rail heritage.

  

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Puffing Billy - Emerald Tourist Railway Board 

The railway   has had a number of changes in the ETRB, the Statutory  Authority responsible for the  operation of the railway. For the  first time the  number of State Government representatives equal the number of the representatives nominated by the  PBPS. The PBPS has the right  under the Emerald Tourist  Railway  Act  to submit to  the Government four  persons as members of the Board. A  maximum of ten persons  may  be appointed to  the Board, the remainder being State Government representatives. Up to now the number  of Government Board members have  been  restricted to three persons to allow the  PBPS have the majority on the  Board should  contentious decisions arise.. The Board now has 8 members to  allow additional  skills to be  available to the Board.

The PBPS has introduced special badges to  recognise 20, 30, 40, and 50 years  of service to the Society.

A number of people very active in the railway  have died in 2008 and  the most  recent  passing was that of Tom Kilner, who  was the railway's Way and Works Manager.  Recently commemorated was the  death of the railway's first  Enginemen's examiner,  Reg  Walton. The year 2008 has not  been  kind  to  Puffing Billy  people.

The railway has  purchased two  DH diesels from McKay Queensland. They  have  now arrived at  Menzies  Creek on their way  to  Belgrave for  modification and for one engine to be re-gauged to  2'6".

DH at Menzies Creek

Photo J. Frost

A special night time run to  Gembrook was held in June with  some listening stops on the way. A bus returned some passengers from Gembrook to  Belgrave.

Puffing Billy  collects the  postcodes of all passengers as they enter the railway. As well as  showing where local  people originate from, they  also  show the success or otherwise  of  publicity in overseas countries.

The railway has a number  of Green Corp  projects  going at  the  moment and works at Clematis  and the cosmetic restoration of a van at  Menzies Creek is progressing.

The restoration  of the Climax engine is going well with  the chimney base casting for the smoke box arriving and is  now being worked on. The chimney has been dismantled and repairs are  under way. In addition, many other works are also under way as part of the restoration  of this  unique locomotive.

Locomotive 8A has achieved its century and this was  celebrated  in the  age old enginemen's  way  by  chalking the  milestone  on the smoke box door.

 

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Steamrail

Steamrail ran on the 14th June 2008 what  was the  last  steam powered trip  from Melbourne to  Albury  on the broad gauge tracks  before they  are converted to  standard gauge. The trip was plagued  by late running due to things  beyond the  control of the  organisers. In the end the trip was suspended early the  next  day  at Seymour at 2.09am instead of it being back in  Melbourne many hours earlier.  At that  time of morning seven buses were obtained and ferried the  passengers  back to  the city. Part of the delay was due to the train being forced to  wait 2 1/2 hours in the  night at Wangaratta on the way  home, waiting to cross a passenger train from Melbourne.

Electrail has  been in discussions with Connex  to discern the requirements for Electrail to operate  once Steamrail gains its mainline accreditation. Electrail has  been unable to run any of its historic electric trains  for several years. In the meantime restoration of carriages has  continued with work being done  on Swing door carriage 12BT and Tait 341T. During the past  open day  at the depot the electric stock was able to move  under power to be  placed at  the  platform for display. Six Hitachi electric cars  were re-sold to the Government and have  been placed in suburban revenue service.

A series of steam hauled shuttles ran on the Glen Waverly  line in June and were enjoyed by  the  public.

Work on A² 986 continues and cracks to  the cylinders  revealed in boring have  been stitch welded. Diesel engine  T364 is  under repair at Steamrail Newport  and T395 at the EDI  workshops  at  Newport. Carriages 46BE has  been repainted and Goulburn sleeping car is  having major electrical modifications and  plumbing alterations. 25BE has had a general roof water proofing done and 500AK has had its  battery  replaced. 1BCE has received a repaint and looks very  smart. 17BE also had  roof repairs.

BZ269, which was purchased from West Coast Railway, is being converted into a  dance carriage. It will have a retention toilet and the car will be fully refurbished. it will run with Moorabool and will provide a great  travel experience for  passengers to  party in.

Standard gauge R766 engine is in NSW and is  moving towards completion  of its conversion. The spare  boilers which  were stored near  the Tarp shop have  been moved over  to West Block.

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The  Victorian Goldfields Railway

The  railway has completed major repairs to  the Muckleford Creek Bridge and replaced three piles in the structure.  The stations platform at  Castlemaine which is an island platform serving both the Mainline trains and the Heritage  Railway has been resurfaced. Before the works were  done, a number of conduits for  future signalling cabling were  installed.  It was determined that  the  best  way  to get  the machines to  do  the job and lay  the  hot mix was to  load all the  material at  Muckleford and run a goods train to  the heritage platform. This saved major problems for the contractor as the rail service between Melbourne and  Bendigo is  now intensive.

The level crossing at Bendigo Road has received attention under the State Government's ALCAM Programme and rumble strips have  been installed on the road surface.

The railway ran a  successful Friends of Thomas weekend in April but was forced to  abandon the  proposed  event in July. The owners of the franchise, who are overseas, have  placed such  heavy  restrictions  on the use of their intellectual property that it  is very  difficult to  run Thomas Events. As they  could  not receive agreement to run any  Thomas events,  they  ran a successful  replacement children's day. Many  Heritage railways in the United Kingdom have also  dropped running Thomas Events because  of this problem.

J515 over its  life has a reputation for starting fires and additional work has been  done by installing some new grids adjacent to  the left hand side ash pan  dampers. The grids on the right hand  side are to be replaced in the future. In addition other mechanical  work has been done.

J541 has had a C exam carried out and  some minor work carried out.  Some window glazing has been  done to 30 BCPL and restoration work done to 41 BU. 29 BCPL is  being readied to  return to  service with a final fit out of seating.

On Saturday 26 July a gala day of double headed J class engines was held.

Double J's arriving at  Maldon

Photo Bob Wilson

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Tramway Museum Society

The line near One Tree Hill has had an upgrade with 16 new sleepers laid and the  track lifted and packed. More work is required on this section and additional  sleepers have  been sourced.

Some site clearing  has also been  done  and an area near  the  house has been leveled. Other  spoil from works have been leveled  and the  material removed to a fill  on the  low lying ground  between the depot fan and the  main line adjacent to  the toilet  block. Other  material will be  used to  re-surface the  main entrance and caretaker's roadways.

The kiosk has  seen  some carpentry done to seal the back  and sides of the  new cupboard to allow  it to be  installed.

Restoration of Q 199 and X2 680 continues. 199 has refurbished seats  and  panelling  in place and these came from car  No 200. The  colourfleck paint  on the ceiling, which  the MMTB introduced as a cost  saving measure, has been  removed to  reveal the varnished ceiling.

X2 680 now looks the best it has looked since  it ran at  Footscray. New replacement builders plates have  been installed in Adelaide H 368. They  were copied  by the Bendigo Tramway from an original plate in their tram No H 369.

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Walhalla Goldfields Railway

Work has steadily  proceeded on the new accreditation  procedures. The railway  has recognised the  need to  train  new young  people to  take  over from the existing generation as they  retire, often  for the second time. To do this teams have  been formed to allow the  transfer of skills and  information.

The cost of running the railway was catching  up and it  has been necessary  for the first time for many  years to  increase the fares. The  Fowler locomotive  has started an overhaul and the Kasey engine will take  up the  load as the railways  operating engine. The Class 10 diesel failed on its test run  and  work has been suspended on this machine until a full assessment  is carried out. So  far  the engine  has cost  the railway  in excess of $139,000 and ten years work.

As part of the  usual work  required to  keep  all railways  operational a considerable amount of  ballast  has been  obtained and spread between Thomson and Walhalla.

The railway  ran a  successful "Murder on the Walhalla Express"  in May and 55 guests enjoyed  a three course meal  and an "Agatha Christie"  evening.

 

 Updated August  2008

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