The year is 1963 somewhere in Victoria, Australia

Fire station complete – almost



The outside plumbing of the fire station is complete. So are the signs at the front. Of course this includes the letters CFA (Country Fire Authority). Wombat Creek is after all a small rural city somewhere in Victoria.

The second fire engine has arrived to the station after being unstuck from its display base. An old screw driver had to be filed down to fit into the triangular screws under the base.

So far, so good. But a closer inspection shows the engine cannot enter the fire station. The ladder is hitting the top of the door frame. Just by a mm or so. The building will need to be raised onto a plinth.

Bruce, Bruce, Charlie Munro, Cuthbert, Sheila and Doug??  (Apologies to Camberwick Green/Trumpton fans)

Sorry, just being irreverent.

Nice model and some lovely fire engines.  Pity about the height - I'd be tempted to leave the machine standing outside - it's too nice to hide!!

Barry

[user=2006]Barry Miltenburg[/user] wrote:

Bruce, Bruce, Charlie Munro, Cuthbert, Sheila and Doug??  (Apologies to Camberwick Green/Trumpton fans)

Sorry, just being irreverent.

Nice model and some lovely fire engines.  Pity about the height - I'd be tempted to leave the machine standing outside - it's too nice to hide!!

Barry

Hi Barry,
The fire engines will stay outside, but I still want to raise the building. At the moment the brickwork of the walls is sitting right on the ground. I think a low concrete plinth will improve the look of the building.

That's lovely Claus.   :thumbs

Bridge over Wombat Creek

Work has commenced over the plate girder bridge carrying the tramways across the Wombat Creek. The original Peco plater girder bridge is 220 mm long, so a  middle section of 75 mm has been cut out. The remaining pieces will later form a second bridge across the creek and the narrow gauge railway. The bridge will be painted obscuring the new and at the moment white ends.


The supporting retaining walls will be clad in blue stones (basalt), and a gravel road (in a very bad condition due to its proximity to the creek) will form the only road access to the Big Nugget Mine behind the bridge.

Finding the right order





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.

Some brilliant work gone in over the last few months! The control area is pretty impressive too!
Are we ready for a running video of the trams yet?

[user=2057]TeaselBay[/user] wrote:

Some brilliant work gone in over the last few months! The control area is pretty impressive too!
Are we ready for a running video of the trams yet?

Not quite ready for a video yet.

Finding the right order – part 5





The bridge for the tramways over Wombat Creek has been completed. The retaining wall has been capped and the left bank of the creek is in place. The building to the left belongs to the narrow gauge railway and will serve as a locomotive shed and repair shop.

At the pub



If you look carefully through the 2nd floor corner window of the Fraser and Duncan hotel, you will see this:



Honestly, you don't. I haven't been scaled down! In fact, the photo is from the Young and Jackson hotel in Melbourne, but it is in front off the 2nd floor corner window. My wife and I are enjoying a beer and a meal after an afternoon with professor Brian Cox and 'black holes'.

Tram on a bridge





Perhaps this is the beginning of a new theme or trend. 'Tram on a bridge' instead of 'bus on a bridge'.

The second bridge over the Wombat Creek has caused me a lot of thoughts. Firstly getting the right hight above the railway line. It is possible to clear the top of the steam locomotives by just 2 mm, but I think it is too tight. With a slightly higher bridge there are inclines on both sides leading up to the bridge. Not a problem for the trams to climb.

Secondly the plate girders are from a Peco kit. I have used the middle parts for the first bridge over the Creek. The remaining parts are glue together to form two girders. They are just too short for the span without relaying the railway track. If the bridge is narrower the girders are fine, but that will result in another issue.

How to get two tram tracks across. A gauntlet with fully 'intertwined' tracks would be an interesting feature, but with the inclines and a curved tracks I have opted out of this solution. Instead the tracks will just clear the girders and be very close to each other. Two trams may not be able to pass the bridge at the same time. A fact, which gives me a reason to install working traffic lights. I'll keep you posted!

Reminds me of a section of track on the Great Orme tramway in Wales. The tracks converge for space, there are no way two trams could cross here. 


But don’t worry, they can never meet as they are pulled on ropes and cross at a specific point half way (of each section). Amazing design. 

Looking forwards to the progress of your bridge work!

Back to the common theme: Bus on a bridge






In 1938 the board of the tramways in Melbourne decided to replace the cable trams in Bourke Street with double deck buses. Leyland was successful in winning tender for 45 bus chassis and one double deck body. The remaining 44 bodies were built by firms in Melbourne and Adelaide. 

The double deck buses were numbered from 201 to 245 in the M&MTB fleet. They were painted in the standard tramway green livery, with numbering and lettering in gold leaf. The buses entered service in October 1940.

By August 1943 it was clear that the conversion of the Bourke Street routes to bus operation had been a failure, for a few reasons:
   The Leyland buses required the same two-man crew  (driver and conductor) as trams, but could not carry as many people. 
   Melbourne commuters were unwilling to travel on the top decks of the double deck buses, due to the difficulty of ascending and descending the stairway, particularly as most passenger journeys were relatively short. As a result, the lower deck was overcrowded.
   The top decks of the double deck buses frequently collided with shop verandas and electric light poles.

Worn out before they were ultimately replaced by trams, the Leyland double deck buses were all withdrawn by January 1954. The buses were all sold off. Their new owners mostly used the buses as sheds or extra accommodation at holiday homes, but one bus had a unique fate.

It was bought by Wombat Creek Tramways. After a major overhaul including re-painting the bus was put into service at route 9 between Wombat Creek and Gumnut Gully.

Well, most of the above is true. The text is an extract from an article at Melbourne Tram Museum’s website. Only the fate of one bus is not quite true. The bus is a purchase from a well-known website. The price and colours were right for Wombat Creek Tramways. Only the side logo, destination box and number plates have to be altered.

If you compare the photo with the photo from post #331 you will see, the temporary support in the middle has been removed. I think it is better for viewing the trains passing under the bridge.

Bus issues





Following up from the previous post, the double-decker bus faces the same problem in Wombat Creek as in Melbourne with hitting the awning along the Myer department store. Hopefully the driver pays attention. The photo also shows how well the bus and tram match the colour scheme.

No wonder everyone travelled on the lower deck Claus !

I know of 2 instances in Yorkshire where buses were specially built to cope with "immoveable objects" -

The main entrance into Beverley in East Yorkshire - Beverley Bar - was the old gateway through the medieval city walls.  It had a pointed arch and double decked buses were built with specially shaped "pointy"  roofs to fit through the gateway.

Another instance was in York where a low bridge (Leeman Road bridge carrying the main east coast line over Leeman Road) would only allow single deckers with a modified destination board to pass underneath, even though the road had been excavated several feet deeper than datum.  These single deckers had a flat destination board fitted rather than the normal raised type. The "trough" created by the sunken road was one of the first places to flood following heavy rains ensuring pedestrians had a very long detour to access the town centre.

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

No wonder everyone travelled on the lower deck Claus !

I know of 2 instances in Yorkshire where buses were specially built to cope with "immoveable objects" -

The main entrance into Beverley in East Yorkshire - Beverley Bar - was the old gateway through the medieval city walls.  It had a pointed arch and double decked buses were built with specially shaped "pointy"  roofs to fit through the gateway.

Another instance was in York where a low bridge (Leeman Road bridge carrying the main east coast line over Leeman Road) would only allow single deckers with a modified destination board to pass underneath, even though the road had been excavated several feet deeper than datum.  These single deckers had a flat destination board fitted rather than the normal raised type. The "trough" created by the sunken road was one of the first places to flood following heavy rains ensuring pedestrians had a very long detour to access the town centre.

From Melbourne Tram Museum: 
The Leyland double deck buses did leave one enduring mark on Melbourne – the lowered roadway under the rail bridge in Queens Parade, Clifton Hill, excavated so the double deck buses could clear the bridge.

Melbourne Cup Day bridge work





Today is a public holiday in Victoria enabling me to spend a few hours with the tramways. The bridge is almost finished. The first train has past under the bridge which soon will have soot marks above the track.

Traffic lights

As mentioned in a previous post the second bridge over the Creek and railway is too narrow for two trams passing at the same time. To regulate the traffic flow traffic lights are needed. Fortunately I came across a website for 'Talking Electronics'. Among  lot of electronic devices (several related to model railways) was a controller for up to four traffic lights. I got in contact with the gentleman behind the electronics and yesterday I picked up a set of lights for a reasonable price. Everything was already put together and ready to go. I still have some work to do before the lights can be installed at the layout, but the short video shows their working. They are Australian and the sequence is red-green-yellow-red.

I'm running late again Claus so just catching up.

I like the underpass and the bridge - looks good and solid.  Regarding trams passing, somehwere in yorkshire, there used to be a similar situation with trams although not under a bridge.  Their solution was to run one track overlapping the other so, at the narrow point, you'd have the right hand rail of the "up" track running between the pair of "down" rails.  Obviously the reverse would be the case on the down track.  There's a photo of it somewhere but heaven knows where I saw it …………………. :hmm


Your traffic light sequence is the same as we have here in France - a very sensible sequence resulting in absolutely no risk of "amber gamblers".

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

I'm running late again Claus so just catching up.

I like the underpass and the bridge - looks good and solid.  Regarding trams passing, somehwere in yorkshire, there used to be a similar situation with trams although not under a bridge.  Their solution was to run one track overlapping the other so, at the narrow point, you'd have the right hand rail of the "up" track running between the pair of "down" rails.  Obviously the reverse would be the case on the down track.  There's a photo of it somewhere but heaven knows where I saw it …………………. :hmm


Your traffic light sequence is the same as we have here in France - a very sensible sequence resulting in absolutely no risk of "amber gamblers".

That was the solution I was going for, but deemed it too difficult being in a curve. So I chose an easier solution of bringing the tracks close together. I am satisfied with the solution? Not at all :sad: !

I will bite the bullet and cut one track into the other. Fortunately the two rails crossing always have the same polarity, which should make the job a bit easier.

The trackwork will commence after Christmas (hopefully this year's Christmas).