Demise of Eumungerie's station part 27...

Been doing a little bit of sleuthing, and of course the answer was under my nose all the time... well, in the attic anyway.

I think I have already mentioned on this blog that the whole world got a bit sadder on Monday, 22 September 1975, when passenger rail services were withdrawn from the Coonamble line.

Following that old saying, the trial separation worked and ended up in a divorce case, nine months after the cessation of rail services occurred the station at Eumungerie was formally closed. Along with 23 other similar stations across the state, the doors were closed on Monday, 24 June 1976.

What I was really after in my hunt was the disappearance of the main station building.  I had a clue, as the NSW Railway Digest recorded that on 24 May 1978 tenders closed for the purchase, demolition and removal of the station building (excluding the station manager's office, staff hut and lamp room) and the shortening of the platform to 16 metres at Eumungerie.

I will stop the story right here to explain that the 'station manager's office, staff hut and lamp room' was not some three-roomed, grand edifice. It was the 18 x 12 southern platform building, described in various publications since as a small windowless room.  This is incorrect too - there were two windows in the rear of the building where the station manager, staff polisher and lamp cleaner all took in the morning sun.  Actually, that is all made up, except for the window bit.  Here is a photo from 1980. Mighty fine windows.

Anyway, I knew the tender date but not the actual demolition date.  Then I rediscovered a pile of papers I had purchased from the ARHS Bookshop some time ago.  In it was an annotated diagram of the standard post-1926 Eumungerie layout.

Well dang me! Mr Observant had failed to read the scribble, which is blown up in the next photo.

Yep, it says 'Building demolished, Length platform reduced 12-7-78...'.  I have my answer. I can also now pin a trip I did to Eumungerie to a couple of days after 12 July 1978, as I picked through the still warm ashes and rubble of the building.  Missed it by that much!

Not sure what I would have done if I had been there on the day that the building was pushed over and torched.  As a hot headed 15 year old I would like to think I would have thrown myself in front of the dozer, but I doubt it.  Dozers are big.

It does clear up one thing though.  I had been troubled by a (false) memory that wheat trains were operating through Eumungerie without guards vans prior to the demolition of the station.  Don't know how I came up with it. Guards vans got the ' demolition and removal' order about seven years later. Sleuthing over and mystery resolved, file 154123 says so.

Cheers,

Don

More bits scattered to the wind

When a country railway station gets bulldozed and then torched, as was the case with Eumungerie's station, I guess you shoudn't expect too much of it to survive.  But thanks to the ingenuity of locals and a few others, some of Eumungerie's 'signature' pieces remain.

Previous posts have announced the existence of Eumungerie's signal diagram and station lamp.  The letters off the station nameboard now adorned the local school, at a height that would dissuade any souveniring.  I can also claim ownership of several paint swatches, literally lifted off the back wall of the station shortly prior to demolition. 

A family holiday to Dubbo's zoo last week provided the opportunity for a look around a very green and lush Eumungerie.  Here are a couple of shots taken for posterity from the north end of the yard, looking south and then north to Gilgandra. The most recent capital improvement can be seen in the first photograph - a single chain mesh fence running the length of the western side of the railway yard. 

The photos give a sense that after several years of drought, a good season may be on the way.  The tracks are rusted, but the permanent way is in good nick and the country looks green for winter.  There is even a pool of water to be seen.

But back to the story.  I jumped into the Dog (the Drover's Dog Hotel) just to test their wares, only to find the following lurking in a back room!

Oh happy days! I will admit to immediately testing out the timbers, using only my body weight and a schooner. It still works very well.

So, all we need is a set of platform scales and a fire bucket and we could probably rebuild the station in all of its finery. Add a DEB set and a mini dress and its 1969 all over again!

Cheers

Don

June 2020 update

This update is principally a salute to the good people who have authored the Autumn 2020 edition of the Roundhouse, which is published by the NSW Rail Museum.

I have had a bit of a mixed relationship with the Roundhouse over the years. In the early 1970s I would grab it eagerly to get the colourful inserts advertising steam tours, only to find that most have been run the previous weekend.  

In the late 1970s the Roundhouse hit its heyday, with a series of detailed and well-polished articles by Robert Booth and others, which ultimately became the Byways of Steam publication.

More recently, I stopped reading the Roundhouse when it became little more than an advertorial for a very misguided organisation, ignoring its failures and over-blowing its few successes.  More recently it seems to be taking a more thoughtful approach, and is certainly worth the $10 it costs.

When I saw the current edition's cover, I reasonably concluded it was all about a big green steam engine.

But no! Its really all about the painting of another big green steam engine, 3144T!  

Tucked down the back of the magazine is a ripping little article from Percy Suckling, retired Dubbo driver who turns out to be the Michelangelo of the West.

Percy's great article explains how the painting of 3144T and 3028T into green and blue respectively, all came about.  I am not going to regurgitate the article, which has some great insights about how it all went down.  

The information in the  article gives me my first opportunity to use the 'table' function in the latest version of blogger so here goes...

Locomotive	Arrived in Dubbo	Repainted	Left Dubbo
3028T	1966	29 Jan 1968 - 3 Feb 1968	10 April 1970
3144T	1964	19 - 23 January 1968	14 January 1969

So, a great read.  The magazine also has a good article on the 44 class fleet by John Casey and a terrific bit of news about J & A Brown's Mersey Tank No. 5 (The Major) by Bruce Saunders.  

On the modelling side, things are inching towards an operating layout.  The shed containing the layout was hooked up the grid this week, many of the boards have arrived in town, the Dubbo station kit has been finished as far as is possible, Talbragar Bridge is under construction and the facade of Dubbo's distinctive Railway Refreshment Room has been constructed. So progress!

Cheers, until there is more progress or news 

Don

Three gems emerge

Things keep falling out of the family photograph collection as various family members self isolate.  I hadn't seen these three photographs until last Friday.  

First up, 3028T shunts a BSV bogie sheep van in Dubbo yard in the early part of 1968 when its locally-applied royal blue livery was still relatively unfaded. 

Probably snapped on the same visit to this region, just up the Newell Highway at Eumungerie the locals were celebrating the opening of their new wheat bulkhead. It wasn't just a great asset for the local farmers - when empty it was also a terrific indoor cricket venue.  It is difficult to imagine these days, but these facilities were routinely left unlocked which was just inviting inspection and nefarious use.

And this third photo is of 3289, crossing the Fitzroy Street level crossing in Dubbo, around 1970.  Although the loco's cab numbers are obscured, its at-the-time unique NSWGR sand box embellishment confirms its identity. 

If these sorts of photographs keep coming to light, I really have no problem with being isolated for another three months or so.

Cheers,
Don

Progress at the station

This post is 50% about the prototype and 50% about a model.  The prototype is Dubbo station and the model is not Elle McPherson.  There goes 50% of the readership.

The prototype is this:

I had always planned to scratch-build this station, but its size, lack of plans, whacky round windows, stonework and Willy Wonka roof-line had been too much to contemplate.  In an earlier iteration of my model of the Coonamble line, a paper cut-out sat forlornly on the station platform for about 10 years.

The station is somewhat more complex than necessary as it possesses a breezeway and signal box at its eastern end, and a full length awning to its west. In days past, an out-of shed was half tucked in under the platform awning, just to the west of the main buildings. 

But it is one of those things that marks Dubbo as Dubbo, so I knew it had to be attempted one day.  Thanks to Covid-19, that day arrived. A few weeks ago I thought I could spend the next 6 months upgrading BWH wheat hoppers, or I could really do something with my life.

Instead of scratch building, I took a punt with the laser kit produced by Walker Models.  Perhaps my best decision this year.  I rate myself as an average and very slow modeller, and have had some choice things to say about backyard timber kits in the past.  But my faith in model making is restored!  After 45 minutes with a sharp knife and cutting mat, for once I was not using the knife on my wrists.  I had the internal skeleton of the building.  The following photo is everything just pressed together, without a drip of glue.

I am not on a retainer here but this kit is fun building! Not just the progress but the way it cobbles together into a sturdy and 'square' model.  It is almost impossible to make a mistake - though I certainly tried.

Another couple of hours today has got the building 90% there.

Apologies for the quality of this second photo.  It was being finished as last light hit.  

Such rapid progress has been made that I decided mid-afternoon to detour into making the (18' x 12') signal box, which still sits at the eastern end of the station (though now with metric measurements).  Here is a 2005 shot of the box.

 

Armed with my usual source's plans and volume 3 of Bob Taafe's highly recommended Signal Boxes book, and a pile of scrap styrene, a semi-passable resemblance has been achieved.

A coat of paint on the box and a corrugated iron roof will improve its appearance.  And this brings us to painting.  The manufacturer recommends painting the stonework to achieve a grey-ish hue not unlike that shown in this photo from 2011.

But that is not the Dubbo I remember - and I spent a fair bit of time on that platform in the late 1960s, dumped by Dad when he was off down the yard chasing 30Ts.  I remember the dirty dark yellow, made filthy with black soot and grime. I don't have a photo of the grime from 1969 but I did find some of the unaltered sandstone in 2011.  I never thought I would have a use for this photo, but here it is - adultered sandstone in the late afternoon winter sun: 

And here is another part of the same building, taken about six months later.  It shows a cleaner wall, and a clean bottom quarter of the wall.

So all of this says to me - pick the colour you would like it to be.  And I pick - au naturalle, out of the box. Yep, just saved myself another hour or so. Yep, there is a need to paint the doors and windows, the roof when complete, facias, awning posts and this gate, but its close.  Probably another hour and I will be ready to plonk it down.

So, thank you Mr Walker Models, its been a very good weekend.  And a weekend I will remember when, on another weekend, I spend 17 hours building the tiniest of gatekeeper's cabins.

Cheers,
Don

Fiddling, instead of working

I have just been playing with some basic, free photo enhancement software.  I am not always sure that using these products is for the best, especially in the hands of someone like myself.  I am relatively comfortable with the idea that photos, just like memories and all of us, just fade away.   That said, having seen some stellar enhancement efforts in recent times, I resolved to have a go at 'improving' some of the family's photo collection.

Around 1977-78 His Nibs invested in one of those cameras which spat out the result as soon as you pressed the shutter.  It was a great way to have your still-developing photos make an early entrance into the dusty atmosphere and even the dirt of whatever railway yard you were standing in.  

You don't need to see the 'before' shot, but here is the 'after'.  I could never work out what we were trying to photograph in this shot - the gantry crane or the station building.  The original was taken about 80 yards from the former, which really helps with the composition.

Even in the 1970s I can guarantee you that the sky was never that colour.  Still, it is an improvement on the original.

Next are a couple of shots of 4911 in May 1979 on a down wheatie.  I have cropped the photo and lightened the side of the loco/train.  Am now happier with the shot of the train, though it looks like the silo is about to ascend to heaven with Charlton Heston.

And now, back to work!

Cheers
Don