Stawell

The next two stations after Horsham are Murtoa; (another major grain receiving station), and Stawell. Stawell was/is a gold mining town, and this is reflected in the impressive brick station that use to serve the town. Associated with the main building is a small brick goods shed. There use to be two impressive signal boxes and had a nice set of operating road crossing gates: now all gone.

The rather unloved brick goods shed at Stawell.

 

 

I have a nice set of photos taken in the 1980's on slides. Will post later.

Tale of a mill

There was more to Horsham station than just the railway infrastructure. At the western end of the yard are the remains of the Noske Flour mill complex. Part of this is currently now used as a furniture factory. The mill, built in 1873, was purchased by T.J Noske, in 1895, when the Union mill collapsed financially;  founding the flour-milling firm of Noske Bros. Ptv. Ltd. in Horsham, then establishing mills at Nhill, Charlton and Murray Bridge (S.A .).
In 1907 a new brick mill was built to replace the old galvanized iron building. This building was added to, by the building a another story when the mill machinery was upgraded during the 1920's. This part of the mill has since been demolished. Photographic evidence shows the building standing in 1985 but gone by the early 1990's.
In 1919 a 125000 bushel silo was constructed, and it was probably around this time the mill was extended with a concrete and brick addition, which survives today.

 

Broad gauge track leading into mill complex.

125000 bushel silo north of the mill.

From a railway point of view, siding three and four connected  to serve the mill. The track remains in the road and into the mill complex. This was later altered, with siding three been lengthened to run down the side of the mill, with siding four leading to the mill,  now being crossed the new siding number six and oil siding number seven.

Mill remains from the rail side.

Tale of a goods shed

The goods shed at Horsham is one of a few long sheds in Victoria. The only unmodified long shed is at Port Fairy. No rail line there, as it was closed in 1977.

These were a Victorian Railways standard 20 ft wide design, timber framed and clad in corrugated iron, constructed throughout Victoria during the period of rapid expansion of the railway system, between 1876 and 1907.

At Horsham, the shed is also not original, as it was burnt down in 1890. As the Melbourne Telegraph newspaper report of July 16 stated. "The railway goods-sheds at Horsham were destroyed by fire last night. A quantity of gunpowder stored there exploded, and none of the contents were saved."

 The new shed has been modified over time with an addition at the western end to allow drive in fork lift access, while an office was built in the eastern end.

When building models from a guesstimate drawing, one is always going to have problems. The width of the model was taken from a card model, when translated to paper, some how became wider. So when I read that these shed were 20' wide I checked and found that the model was 25' wide. This actually related to an extra line of stumps underneath. Their distance apart came from a goods platform drawing.

Main structure of shed completed

I then had to decide if to leave it or to modify back to 20' wide.

 Starting with the addition section, I removed this from the main building and made the cuts to reduce its width. Next was to start on the main structure.

Walls removed and floor ready to be cut down. I will have to build a new eastern wall, as I think the windows were wrong any way.

Horsham station 2

Further history to the station. The station was extensively repaired in 1939.

The plan call for the construction of  new additions under the existing buildings and  the sinking of 125 new piles driven 29 feet onto the soil under the existing foundation, with all the walls being set on new re-enforced rail foundations. This was because the unstable nature of the earth had allowed the building to sink.

The whole layout was changed to isolated the main block from the goods shed and other building.

The booking, parcels and station master's  offices all under went extensive alterations, and  the men's waiting room was shifted to the middle of the building, plus new general waiting room and new women's waiting room; while the refreshment room was refitted to an improved standard.

The existing main entrance was closed and moved to the new booking office entrance built so it was no longer required to enter via the platform. The cantilever veranda was estended to go around the sides of the building. This brought the station in line with the railway's standard construction. It was estimated that about 16 Horsham workers were  kept occupied for six months on the job. Approximately £1800 was spent in labour costs alone. 

The plans, followed on from the new truck yards. The work was completed in 1940 including painting of the building.

Horsham Station

Horsham has a brick station, currently used for adult education building. Recently refurbished, with a section of platform been upgraded for passengers waiting for the Overland.
The model was built from measurements taken a couple of years ago. One main point in measuring a building is to check one has all the required data before leaving, as there is nothing worse than preparing a drawing later to find you have forgotten an important measurement. Like the height of the walls. Four and a half hours each way is not on just for a stretch of the tape measure.
Lucky, I found a drawing of Talbot, through a search engine and guessed that most station buildings would be much the same height. This was later confirmed on  a recent pass through while heading to Melbourne by car, instead of flying.

 The real thing.

 This is a cropped photo of the station. The others I have of the building are on old fashioned film.

The model.

Model structure nearly complete. I have left off the toilet structure that was once on the right, as it has since been demolished. The curved top section of the roof yet to be added. I have test painted the verandah.

The model test fitted on the layout. Just as well no toilet block, as it has to sit right up against a garage support post. (Unfortunately this means the building will not line up with the end of the goods shed, and I can not move that either because of the track work required).  The doors are yet to be fitted. I have a scaled photo of the doors that I will probably use. Painting still in progress.

Overland departs Dimboola

December 2008. I have mentioned before in a couple of posts of the break in rain, during a trip to Dimboola in December 2008. This video shows just how wet it was, filmed from the pedestrian overpass, under an umbrella.

Lillimur Victoria

Between Serviceton and Kaniva, is the small town of Lillimur. If there was ever a station building at Lillimur it has long since gone. Now just a grain siding with automatic signalling, the siding services concrete vertical, metal bin and large shed silos.
Lillimur was settled in 1877, when thew railway was built through to Serviceton: and a court house was built just on the edge of the town in 1887. It closed in 1892. In 1913, the post office moved in, in preference to building a new post building. Next to the Western Highway, this building just still stands, not only needing restoration, but to be modeled.

Lillimur ex court house/post office.

Out the front, not illustrated, is a horse hitching rail: just visible to the right, and an old lamp post.
This photo was taken in December 2008. A dry moment on a very wet day.