Look! Up in the sky! Is it a bird? No, it’s a loco boiler.

​I have been dreading a certain bit of modelling. One distinctive piece of railway infrastructure at Dubbo was the sand tower. It was distinctive due to its height- being the second highest structure in the yard (and probably the city too). Here is a snap from the 1980s.

Thanks to a good mate on the south coast, I happen to have a plan of the tower. The sand container is 24 feet - 7.3 metres.  And it was hoisted 7.7 metres in the air. Yep, 50 feet is a long way up in the air in Dubbo.

The first thing you notice about the plan is that it isn't what got built.  But, with the Railways we all know plans were just to give you the vibe of things.  But I digress...

The sand tower was also distinctive because it was the only time a 57 class worked in Dubbo. To clarify, the sand drum was a condemned 57 class boiler, as noted on the plans.

The tower was also distinctive because it walked. Well, it moved, at least once that we know of. During the steam era it was located to the east of the loco shed, adjacent to the coaling tower. Once diesels needed sand, it the tower walked west to the other end of the shed.

I had resigned myself to not modelling the sand tower because I can’t afford to cut up a brass 57 class. And no one I asked would let me cut theirs up either. But yesterday something weird happened.

I was browsing a Canberra op shop, and did my usual ‘got any toy trains?’ line. In response the lady said ‘we have crates of them out the back’. Oh happy days! I was imagining Lassiter’s treasure trove, with Model Dockyard garratts and Trax 12s and good stuff. I was mildly disappointed therefore to find boxes of plastic British locos, molded to the rails. Yep, the collection of models which came with one of those overpriced magazine subscriptions.

I needed to hide my disappointment and, more importantly, I needed to buy at least one as an act of charity. Then my cunning plan hatched! While none of them looked like a 57, the 1918 Churchward 2800 class looked most like a 57 class.

Well, it sort of did look like a 57 class loco if you screwed up your eyes and pretended the lights were down low. So, No. 2861 became my boiler donor.  Remember, its the vibe!

Today I did some hacking and it may sort of work out okay, sort of, just perhaps. Well, there needs to be some filling and painting and weathering and a support tower need to be built, but or a dark rainy night it may just pass for something like the real thing. Here’s a sneak peak - just a location shot of the half finished water tank next to the half finished loco shed, with the not-quite finished coal stage in the distance, and the boiler sitting on a drill set (obscured).

But really, the sand tower is meant to be a thing in the background, which fixes the location as Dubbo. Here's a snap taken of 3649 hanging out of the western end of Dubbo shed in the mid-1960s (maybe as late as 1967). This is the typical shot I have of the sand tower in its original position - just hanging around as a blob in the background.

So, in that vein, here’s a shot of a hot day in Dubbo in the mid-1970s, where the near-new 4701 has been commandeered to work a trippy from Talbragar ballast siding (editor’s note: the IDR ballast wagons are simply gorgeous). The heat haze and the diesel fumes make it difficult to see the sand tower and coal stage as anything more than a blur.

See you in February!

Cheers

Don