Weighing wagons

 

By the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the use of country rail weighbridges was declining as the Victorian Railway’s was tending to charge customers by the wagon load, train load or on an agreed estimate weight rather than on the true weight of the goods.  During the 1983 the Ballarat Rail weighbridge was used to weigh mill grain in GY, GH and VHGY wagons destined for Garden City (at Ballarat North), Joe Whites (at Wendouree) and Elliot Magill (at Redan). It was also used to determine the tare weight of wagons outshopped from Ballarat North Railway workshops and to weigh FJ and VPFX hopper wagons used to convey flour from Ballarat to Williamstown and Westall.

Weighing of a 4-wheeled wagon took an average of 15 minutes.  The weighbridge was fitted with a relief road that allowed locomotives and other rollingstock (that did not need to be weighed) to pass over the weighbridge without placing any load on the bridge.

The weighbridge building is made from Evengreen styrene (clapboard and strips) using an article and plans by John Gilbert from the Australian Model Railway Magazine (p52-54 August 2002).  I used a photo from www.pilbararailways.com.au taken on 6th April, 1991 (http://pilbararailways.com.au/gallery/displayimage.php?album=96&pid=2418#top_display_media) to detail around the building (including the discarded cans, planks of wood and 44 gallon drum).

Today Y150 is pushing a rake of VHGY's loaded with wheat that arrived overnight from Berriwollock over the weighbridge. As the rake is longer than the weighbridge siding, the wagons are split to be weighed individually.

Once weighing is completed, the Y class reassembles the rake and attaches a VTQY. 

The Y then departs on the Flour Mill pilot pushing the wagons out of the arrival and departure sidings through the station on no.4 road before crossing to the down mainline. The flour mill pilot usually pushes the open and hopper wagons to the Garden City Flour Mill as it makes shunting easier due to the arrangement of the sidings. 

37 minutes later, Y150 returns from the Garden City Flour Mill pushing a VPFX (loaded with flour for Westall) and pulling two empty oil tanks, an empty GY, 3 empty GH's and a VLCX (loaded with pallets of bagged flour for Fitzroy).