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Victoria Mill ‘Melbourne’ Operational at ANGRMS Woodford |
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Ex-Victoria Mill loco 'Melbourne' is seen sitting outside
the ANGRMS running shed at Woodford on 12 April 2003.
Some maintenance is evidently underway
because the connecting rod is sitting on the running board.
The livery follows that worn at Victoria
Mill in the 1960’s: grey tender & boiler barrel, sky blue cabsides, with yellow
roof and running boards.
The livery is nicely finished with a polished
brass dome and boiler bands.
An interesting feature is the double-layer tropical roof
over the cab.
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Builder |
Hudswell,
Clarke & Co. Ltd, Leeds |
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Builder’s Number & Year |
1701
of 1938 |
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Wheel Arrangement |
0-6-0 |
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‘Melbourne’
is one of the fleet of Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0 locomotives operated by Colonial
Sugar Refining Co Ltd (CSR) at its mills in Queensland and Fiji. This example
spent its entire working life at the Victoria Mill at Ingham, a town north of
Townsville and notable for the social and cultural heritage of the many
Italian cane farming families in the area. ‘Melbourne’
was assembled by CSR fitters at Victoria Mill in 1956 by combining the best
parts of three earlier Hudswell Clarke locomotives: ·
Frames, wheels, running gear and tender from ‘Victoria’ (b/n
1701 of 1938) ·
Boiler from Hambledon Mill No.5 (b/n 1552 of 1925) ·
Cab from ‘Silver Jubilee’ (b/n 1659 of 1936) A
locomotive usually takes its identity from the frames, and hence this
combined locomotive perhaps should have retained the name ‘Victoria’ but was instead
christened ‘Melbourne’ by the CSR administration, while the worn-out remains
of the three donor machines were scrapped in 1956. CSR was
among the last commercial users of steam locomotives in Australia, maintaining
several Hudswell Clarke locos until 1976. At the cessation of steam
operations, the remaining CSR steam locomotives were generously donated to
various preservation societies. ‘Melbourne’ was gifted to the Australian
Narrow Gauge Railway Society & Museum (ANGRMS) in 1976, with the locomotive
initially transported for storage at Rocklea, Brisbane in 1977 before
arriving at Woodford in 1979. ANGRMS is based at Woodford station on the
former Queensland Railways Kilcoy branch, a portion of which has been re-laid
to 2’ gauge for heritage train operations on what is now known as the ‘Woodford Railway’. Here
ANGRMS volunteers have restored Melbourne to operable condition, a process
requiring much work over more than 15 years as the locomotive was found to
have a number of unanticipated defects. The
webmaster recalls visiting Ingham and district during a 1996 road trip to
Cairns. In those days, Victoria Mill offered guided tours for visitors, for which
I eagerly signed up! The tour included the cane delivery and refining
operations, in particular the massive steam-powered crushers, filtering and
crystallising equipment. The sights, sounds and smells of an operating sugar
refinery assault the senses, including sweet smell of molasses mingling with
the tropical heat & humidity; wonderful memories. An
excellent source of detailed historical and technical information for ‘Melbourne’,
together with many photographs, its earlier constituent engines and the various
other Hudswell Clarke steam locomotives employed by CSR in Australia and Fiji
is ‘Salute to the Hudswells’ by Ian Stocks, David Mewes and John Browning.
This book also provides information about Hudswell Clarke products supplied
to non-CSR sugar mills. The ANGRMS
collections page for Melbourne also provides useful historical and
technical information for this loco. |
References
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a |
Light
Railway Research Society of Australia Inc. Web site (Retrieved
3 November 2018): 'Preserved
Australian Sugar Cane Locomotives' list by John Browning |
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b |
Wikipedia page for Hudswell, Clarke & Co. Ltd, retrieved 28
November 2018 |
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c |
‘Salute to
the Hudswells’ by Ian Stocks, David Mewes & John Browning Published
by Australian Narrow Gauge Railway Museum Society, 2014. |
Page updated: 28 February 2021
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