A narrow gauge railway between the mines, the sawmill and the explosives factory

Finding the right order – part 3

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!

Finding the right order – part 4

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.

Narrow gauge turntable – part 1





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.

Narrow gauge turntable – part 2

Construction of the turntable got under way today. I planned to take a few photos of the process, but I got carried away with the work itself, so I have only a few photos to show. The project is progressing as expected but not as fast as I had hoped for.



The first image is of the container lid,, which will form the pit for the turntable. The 'bridge' is cut from the bottom of the container. A slim 50 mm bolt has been put through the centre of the 'bridge'.

The second image shows the pit in place.

Quite a few stages were done before the third image. A section of standard gauge track was cut into two and forms the guide rail at the bottom of the pit. Probably slightly over-size, but I expected it would be too difficult to keep a smaller rail in place. Two length of narrow gauge rails have been super glued to the 'bridge'. Wires have been soldered to the rails on the bridge and in the pit. The 'pit rails' will be powered. The 'bridge wires' will somehow glide on top of lower rails and thereby supply power to the 'bridge'. A slim sheet of plastic has been slit in place along the wall of the pit to conceal the threads of the lid. The third image shows the turntable and the tracks leading towards it installed. Also the track into the shed is in place.

The final image is similar to the third, but with the shed in place.

Tomorrow's work will include laying the remaining track and power the tracks and the turntable. Finally the turntable has to be detailed .

Narrow gauge turntable – part 3

When life serves you lemons, you make lemonade. When life serves you polypropylene plastic, you … don't make a turntable!



Nothing seems to stick to this sort of plastic (except the label), so I had to start from scratch with the turntable. His time I used styrene plastic and the outcome is far better. The turntable still has to be painted and railings fitted along the top.



The turntable is turned with a worm drive. The axle is a knitting pin kindly donated by my wife. The turntable can be turn fully 360 degrees, but this will rarely happens. Because of a steep (and invisible) incline near the Little Nugget Mine all locomotives will run chimney first towards the mines to avoid  the top of the firebox being exposed.



The tracks are down and powered. Unfortunately my first attempt got a couple of wires mixed up. As a result a steam locomotive ended up in the creek twice! All is now sorted. The locomotive shed houses the two large steam engines. The smaller one will require a second shed at the track to the left of the bigger shed. This track will also be used for a coal stand and a water tank.

Narrow gauge turntable – part 4

The turntable is now ready for use – I thought!

To paint the sides of the well and add sand to the bottom I had to take the drive and the bridge apart. The green railings at the bridge look a bit 'flimsy' with the handles just stuck to the top. Have a look at this video from the West Coast Wilderness Railway and the turntable in Dubbil Barril and you will see, I am not far off!

Assemble it all again should have been easy, but it wasn't to be. The cogwheel in the drive just slid around the axle without turning the bridge. The friction between the pick-ups and the curved rail was too much. Since I probably wouldn't need to turn a locomotive, I hard wired the bridge. It sort of solved the problem, but now the tracks don't line up! Everything has to be taken apart again.

That's a natty looking turntable Claus - well done you.  :thumbs

[user=6]Petermac[/user] wrote:

That's a natty looking turntable Claus - well done you.  :thumbs

Thank you.

The turntable looks OK, but I am not quite satisfied with connections between the turntable and the adjacent tracks. I will do some adjustments at a later stage. 

Melbourne Cup Day landscaping





Given the urban setting of Wombat Creek the layout will not have many opportunities for 'landscaping'. The small embankment along the railway is made with scrap pieces of foam-board painted a base brown. A ground cover of tea leaves will form the topsoil before some Australian native will be planted.

It smells like Earl Grey





Well, not really. Despite the ground cover is made of tea leaves from used teabags it doesn't smell at all. The logs obscure the creek coming straight out of the background.

Know your tree ferns from your palm trees





During the week I made some progress with the landscaping around the creek. 21 tree ferns and a couple of stumps went down. The ferns started their life as palm trees but with the trunks cut shorter and added sisal as dead fronds (need a bit of brown colouring), they can be taken for tree ferns. The reeds along the bank of the creek are coloured fibres from a sisal rope.

What with high class ground cover and truncated palm trees, there's no wonder Wombat Creek is a desirable place to have a mine.  I wonder what spuds would taste like if they were grown in Lapsang Souchong earth ………….. :roll:

Here we just use builder's tea rubble from Tetley's ………………… :cool wink

Love the turntable, very smart! Hope you get it align properly too. 
Hope there wasn’t too much water in the creak 

Striking gold?



The Big Nugget Mine is not up and running yet, but you may find gold in Wombat Creek. A gold panner is trying his luck near the end of the tram line.

May you all strike gold this Christmas.

Home among the gum trees





The gold panner is still trying his luck; now in the shade of some gum trees and under the watchful eyes of a couple of  koalas.

This part of the layout is almost finished. The backdrop needs to be replaced with a proper one. Unfortunately this will involve disconnecting wires, disassembling sections and moving the whole layout two inches to the right.

The Mining Railway is operational

The narrow gauge railway serving Wombat Creek Consolidated Mines Pty Ltd is now operational.  The missing link between the Explosives Factory and the Big Nugget Mine has been constructed under the Main Street. The engineers used the 'cut-and-cover' method for the tunnel.





As a train may stall or derail in the tunnel, access to the tunnel will remain from the top by moving a building or two.

Rolling stock

With the tracks finished, the narrow gauge railway definitely needs rolling stock. At the moment the entire fleet consists of three steam locomotives, one big passenger coach and four ore wagons. None of this is typical for a narrow gauge railway in Victoria, so it is time to get constructive!



Almost 50 years ago I bought four scale N wagons (made in Yugoslavia) for $1.60 each! The purpose of the purchase has always been to use the chassis and bogies for HOe/OO9 stock. Finally this is going to happen. 

The sawmill supplies the mines with fire wood and props and will need open wagons like the Victorian Railways NQR.

One down (almost) – three to go



The first open NQR wagon is ready to run. It still needs to be painted and and have a few details added. The body is made from 0.5 mm polystyrene sheets and 1.5 mm polystyrene angles. With another three wagons the fleet of NQRs should be big enough to serve the sawmill and mines

A 'rookie' mistake




The inaugural four NQR wagon train passing the Explosives Factory bound for the Big Nugget Mine.


Hang on! The loop can only take three wagons!


Time to fire up the small 6-wheeler for the rescue.


The 6-wheeler has arrived and will take the wagons back to the depot area.


The train has arrived. Later the big locomotive will come back as a light engine.

Made an 'Inglenook' shunting puzzle by mistake

In 1899 the Victorian Railways began constructing rolling stock for their narrow gauge railways. It was decided all carriages and wagons should have the exact same dimensions. All are 27' 3 ¾'' long and 6' 3'' wide with 17' between the bogies.



With this in mind I designed the track plan for the mining railway in Wombat Creek. The area with the Big Nugget Mine is rather constrained but calculations showed the loop should just be long enough for three wagons. Unfortunately the couplers are longer than expected. Only two wagons will allow the locomotive to run around. The 'standard' train will consist of one or two wagons plus a brake/guards van. A shunting puzzle has been created.

Shunting to and from the siding can be done, if the siding can take three wagons. Again, the couplers are just too long! Somehow the siding has to be extended, which can only happen by moving the points into the siding closer to the entry points. 

After I have pulled up the tracks involved, I did some 'line drawing' and I have a new track plan for the mine. Exchanging two wagons already in the siding with two other wagons will be a challenge but can be done.