My favourite articles in Newrail in the early 1980's were Norm Houghton's annual prilmages to the North Western and Western Victoria to record the movement of the grain harvest.
Norm Houghton's articles recorded T and Y classes plodding along Wimmera and Mallee branchlines with a long rake of GY's, dropping off a few empty wagons at each silo and collecting the fulls on the return journey to the junction station where mainline locomotives would be added for the remainder of the journey to the port of Portland or Geelong. These articles provided inspiration for my previous layout based on a fictitious branchline in the northern Wimmera and southern Mallee.
Norm's article on the grain harvest that appeared in March 1984 issue of Newsrail, recorded the locomotives that were at Ballarat East Locomotive Depot on the 27th December 1983 and is the inspiration for this post.
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| W243, Y154, Y155, T407, T337, T324 and T370 sit around the turntable at Ballarat East Locomotive Depot on the 27th December 1983. S312 and T364 were stabled at fuel point. |
On the 27th December 1983 the following locos were noted at Ballarat East locomotive Depot. S312, T324, T337, T364, T370, T407, W243, Y154 and Y155.
B69 and X32 had been present at the loco earlier in the morning, before running the 0645 and 0745 pass to Melbourne respectively. Y152 had departed the loco in the early hours of the morning for pilot duties in Ballarat yard. Fitters were working on W243, after the crew were unable to start the loco after it was shutdown for few days over Christmas.
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| Fitters work on W243 sfter the crew were unable to start the locomotive after it had been shutdown over Christmas. |
Crews arrived and coupled T407 to T337 and T364 on the turntable road. The trio of T's then departed for Ballarat yard where Y152 had prepared a rake empty GH's bound for overflow silos on the Mildura line.
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| T407-T337-T364 run past the fuel point at Ballarat East Locomotive Depot. |
Y154 was used to move W243 to the maintenance shed for further attention.
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| Y154 shunts W243 into the maintenance shed for further attention. |
Y154 then departed for the Ballarat yard, coupled to a flat and 2 open wagons loaded with shipping containers and ZL and departed for Kaolin plant at Pittong on the Skipton line.
The fitters finally got W243 working and it departed to run the flour mill pilot.
T370, recently repainted into V/Line colours ran to the fuel point and coupled to S312. The S and T then ran to Ballarat yard where W243 had prepared a rake of empty VHGY's that it had retrieved from the Garden City Flour Mill. Once safety working procedures were completed the S and T departed with the block of VHGY's to the sub-terminal at Dunolly.
Later Y155 and T324 teamed up to act as bankers for the day up Warrenheip bank. There first assist in the rear was to X31-S305 on block train of VHGY's loaded at the Central Receival Points at Berriwollock and Wycheproof.
The pair returned light engine 26 minutes later, and were stabled in the carriage sidings to await further banking duties.
Norm's observations provide an insight into how the Victorian's locomotive fleet was being used during the height of the bumper grain harvest. Using these observations allows modellers to accurately recreate multi-unit lash-ups of days past. Now all I need to know is the model of Norm Houghton's car in the early 80's so that I can replicate him lineside recording the train movements during the harvest.
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