Dimboola

Dimboola
Dimboola station. This great photo was taken by my son Craig

Saturday 28 February 2015

Victorian grain storage drawings

Having been asked recently about drawings for Victorian grain storage facilities, I have decided to add some to these pages. Unfortunately I could not get the scanner to  talk to the laptop, so I resorted to taking photos. These drawings came from VicGrain, many years ago, when I inquired about drawings for silos. They are representative only, as at each site, the size of Oat sheds and steel bin silos varies in dimensions.
The first is  marked on the drawings as the Oat Shed, also used for bagged grain. There is one of these remaining at Horsham, right down the end of the Melbourne end of the yard.
Oat Shed Horsham (No longer in use)
End view
Side view
The above photograph shows the other silos associated with Horsham. One the right is a very large Williamstown type concrete vertical silo ( which has four smaller diameter verticals behind it). These serviced the flour mill, which part remains, just left of center. As a matter of interest, this second only to Nhill silo in size, which is the largest in the state.
To the left are five Ascom type steel grain bins. These are no longer used, as Grain Corp does not operate these bins, or rail siding any more.
Drawing for Ascom Jumbo.

The plans were scale 1/200. The diameter across the Ascom was 120mm, and height of bin to top of cap was 130mm. The Oat shed was 63mm wide and 41mm high. Use only as a guide, as for example, the Oat shed at Horsham is actually wider than the drawing, so is higher.
For the Williamstown silo, the following link to Eltham Model railway website, has large PDF to download.  http://www.elthammrc.org.au/scenery/162-victorian-grain-silos



PS. I also have drawings for South Australian concrete verticals an steel bins, to add later (Now added). It is interesting to note, that many concrete vertical silos in Queensland followed a very similar design to the SA ones.