Clearing the Skipton silos

A ZMF guards van brings up the rear of a grain extra to Skipton to clear the silos ahead of the 1983/84 harvest.

With the start of the harvest only a month away, grain extras have been running to Skipton each day this week to clear the silos. These trains have mostly consisted of GH hoppers, although on Tuesday 25th October, T359 ran a train with GY's. The final movement occurred on Thursday 27th October with the grain extra double headed by T361 and Y151. Trains won't run to the terminus again until harvesting commences in the area served by the Skipton silos. Movement of the 1983/84 harvest is expected to commence in the last week of November 1983.

At 6:46am on Monday 24th October 1983, T321 leads a long rake of empty GH's for loading at the Skipton silos out of Ballarat5. It will take over 3 hours to reach the branchline terminus and then a number of hours to load the GH's at the silos with the train not returning to Ballarat until mid afternoon.

On Tuesday 25th October, T359 leads a short rake of GY's from Skipton downgrade through the junction at Ballarat C Box.

On Wednesday 26th October, T367, powers out of Ballarat station with a rake of GH's. This train operated to a later schedule departing at 11:24am.

On Thursday 27th October team T361 and Y151 team up to lift a long rake of empty GH's out of Ballarat for loading at the Skipton silos. This was the last of the grain extras run, Trains won't run to the terminus again until harvesting commences in the area served by the Skipton silos. 

Only part of these grain trains movements occur on the modelled portion of the layout. The train was assembled in Ballarat yard and then run o the hidden sidings (staging) where they run around the wagons and are then held for a number of hours (to reflect the run to Skipton, loading at the silos and then run back to Ballarat). Once the appropriate time has elapsed, the train runs onto the modelled portion of the layout and arrives in Ballarat yard. Using the hidden sidings/staging this way during operating sessions creates a sense of layout being part of a larger railway network and allows prototype operations to be replicated.