Talk:Narrow gauge lines of the Victorian Railways

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[edit] Dealing with pre- and post- preservation

I would like to propose that to avoid confusion references to infrastructure etc in this article should refer to pre-preservation practice, and that any changes in post-preseveration practice should be mentioned on the PBR and WGR pages. In particular Nobelius Siding, which was used solely for freight by VR, and Thompson, which except for a short period was not a station for VR. cheers, --Michael Johnson 03:02, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I essentially agree. This is, after all, an article about the VR lines, not the PBR and WGR lines. That is why, when I added Thomson to the list, I didn't add Happy Creek, etc. But Thomson was a VR station, and deserves to be in the list at least as much as 'temporary station site'. Nobbies Siding is a bit different. I listed it as a goods siding, but added a note about its current (post-preservation) status to avoid confusion. However, if the list was clearly (to the average reader) representing the pre-preservation situation only, I'd be happy for that to go. Regardless, I'm open to suggestions.

If anything, I'm more concerned about the inclusion of sidings at all. Where do we stop? Bridges? Level Crossings? Occupation crossings? Do we really need 'temporary station site'? (Thomson, by contrast, if I know my history well enough, was at least an official, albeit short-lived, VR station, complete with nameboard. But if it closed before the line opened, I suppose that status is questionable.) This is, after all, an encyclopedia article, not a comprehensive history of every aspect of the lines.

Philip J. Rayment 09:28, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

I have to agree with you about sidings - I just copied lists from the other pages. There should be something notable about them for inclusion, and other items. I would for instance include something about the horseshoe trestle. Yes you are right about Thompson. However the problem I have with Nobelius Siding is that it is not really a station even today. I mean you can't catch a train from or to there. It is a destination for some special trains, I know, but that is somewhat different. --Michael Johnson 12:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

If you are suggesting that Nobelius Siding should not be shown if we remove sidings from the list, then I fully agree. But as far as use by passengers or numbers of trains stopping there are concerned, Nobelius Siding today is more of a station that Selby, Clematis, Nobelius, Wright, and Fielder. And possibly more than Cockatoo! Philip J. Rayment 16:08, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I think sidings should be excluded, but interesting or notable sidings can be mentioned in the text. --Michael Johnson 00:58, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

i believe there are afew sidings which should have their own pages, or maybe even a seperate article for sidings on each line and list and provide a breif history. --Dan027 12:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Walhalla page

In future, if your going to remove any information like that, perhaps creating a new page which it would fit into would be more usefull, the information removed from the Walhalla Goldfields Railway page is now located on the Wallhalla railway line page. cheers guys --Dan027 07:58, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Dan027, the question that we were discussing above is whether the information is notable enough to be mentioned at all. The Walhalla railway line page, apart from reinstating some links to pages about sidings, which almost certainly don't deserve their own articles anyway, simply duplicates information from the Walhalla Goldfields Railway article (and the station links from this article). Philip J. Rayment 09:18, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

the Walhalla page is still imcomplete, i have been collecting more detailed information into the history of the railway. --Dan027 09:55, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Well good luck to you with that. Personally I feel that is far too much detail for a general encyclopedia. Especially when you consider thousands of lines have no article at all. See for instance: http://www.pearcedale.com/c&b/thirty.html cheers --Michael Johnson 11:56, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

thank you. however this is where wikipedia differs from a normal printed encyclopedia, its ability to cover many topics and articles that would not normaly be in a printed encyclopedia. --Dan027 12:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] suffered from the extra expense and time of having to transfer the goods between narrow-gauge and broad-gauge vehicles,

I'm just wondering how valid this sentence is. I know it is the conventional wisdom, but two facts indicate they may not be the problem in relation to VR narrow gauge that we think:

• Shippers paid for the cost of transhipping, so this was not a cost born by the VR
• In this era, goods trains could wait more than 24 hours to enter Melbourne yard, and the engines so tied up were not available for other trains, compounding delays. A few hours delay in transhipment hardly seems a problem.

VR didn't do much to ease transhipment problems, no gantry cranes for instance. And at Collins Siding, NQR wagons could have been whipped up the Tyers Valley Tramway, but all timber transfer work was done by hand.

Just a thought --Michael Johnson 08:11, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Even though it seems that society didn't change as rapidly in the first half of the 20th century as now, it is probably inaccurate to think of that era as an unchanging time. So even if transshipment was not a problem (cheap labour, etc.) when the lines opened, it probably became a problem by the time they closed. One obvious change, of course, over the 40 to 60 year lives of the lines was the increase in competition from road transport.

• Agreed, and of course once road traffic became viable, that should have been the end (as it was for instance in France where many short narrow gauge lines were closed in the 1920's and 30's.)

• Even if the cost of transshipment was borne by the shippers, it was still a cost that was an expense to someone, and if to the shipper then it discouraged use of the lines, which deprived them of income.

• True, but in business a cost is a cost and it has to be bourne if you can't avoid it. If costs are too high you arn't in business long, so presumably there was enough profit to allow the businesses that used the railway to survive, and there was no cheaper option or it would have been adopted (and was as roads and trucks improved).

• Perhaps the direct cost of transshipment was borne by the shipper, but what about indirect costs of vehicles remaining stationary not only whilst being loaded and unloaded, but also while having goods transferred between vehicles?

• That would have been a cost but substantially greater than those already in the system from wagons sitting in sidings or yards? Not so sure. One reason management was against narrow gauge is the stock could not be moved elsewhere on the system to meet demand.

• Were the delays with goods trains really as bad as you say? I don't doubt that at times they might have been, but Harold Clapp also tried to improve the railways considerably, including pioneering the sale of fresh orange juice, creating a demand for railing oranges from Sunraysia. Clearly this traffic could not have afforded to be held up for a day to enter Melbourne Yard. Perhaps that traffic got special priority; I don't know. But waiting a day seems a bit extreme, at least later in the first half of the century.

• Strange but true, see below.

• Transshipping an entire train load between narrow and broad-gauge vehicles would not have been done in "a few hours", I wouldn't think. I expect the delay to have been more like a day, or half a day. I don't have old timetables handy, but I would think that any loads that arrived on the narrow gauge would not leave on the broad gauge until the next day, or perhaps late the same day if they arrived in the morning. I'm not talking about vangoods here, which would not have waited so long..

• Depends how many men they through at the task. In the mid '20's up to three NG trains arrived at Colac per day. Remember this is the era wheat was shipped by bag, and hand stacked in the station yard, then hand loaded onto wagons, then hand unloaded into stachs at the port, then hand loaded onto ships, all one bag at a time.

• I'm pretty sure that there was a gantry crane at Upper Gully at least, after the station was rebuilt.

• But not one at Colac, despite the volumes transhipped there. --Michael Johnson 01:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Philip J. Rayment 10:11, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

Ref delays to goods trains, yes, that comes from a train controller, who said "timetables were just a guide to what might be run". I do have a VR timetable appendix somewhere, and it does describe how different classes of freight were handled, and of course perishables were not left like that. You mention oranges, fresh fruit was railed from Mildura in a TP van attached to the daily passenger. Agreeed that motor vehicles had made these lines obsolete by the 1950's, if not the 1930's. However that could be said for quite a few branch lines. But anyway Wikipedia is not about what we believe, but can we verify it? Do you have a source for the statement? I want to re-write the introduction to bring in more background to the decision to build the lines, and would also like to deal with the closure as well. Cheers, --Michael Johnson 00:34, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

On the other hand I do have a source that says (if I remember right) that the trains never covered the cost of operation simply because they couldn't carry the loads required to meet the cost of operation, and thus every additional train just added to the loss. IE freight charges were not high enough. --Michael Johnson 01:14, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

No, I don't have a source, and you are correct about the need to verify, so go ahead with your rewrite if you wish. However, I have a question. Who actually transshipped the goods? Railway staff? I assume that it would be railway staff. In that case, the shippers did not pay the cost of transshipping, unless the VR levied an extra amount on the shippers to cover that. But you say that there was a loss because the charges were not high enough. Why were they not high enough? Could it be because they were standard rates, not rates that were designed for the circumstances including transshipping? I realise that my argument here is not rock solid, as perhaps there was a standard cartage rate plus a transshipping fee, but it does make me wonder. There was a time when (for political reasons) cartage from the Mildura line to Portland was charged (on a mileage basis) as if there was a connection between Tempy and Yarto, or somewhere like that. People campaigned the line be built to cut their costs, but the political response was to charge as if the line was built, even though it wasn't built. That is, the railways, not the shippers, wore the cost of not providing a better network. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the same principle applied with the narrow gauge; i.e. the railways wore the cost of transshipping because they didn't have a better system.

Much of that assumes, I suppose, that you are wrong about the shippers wearing the cost of transshipment. Do you know if that was the case for certain?

Philip J. Rayment 08:23, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

I will search my references before doing anything, but from memory, post WW2 contractors were used to do the transhipment, at least at Colac. Freight rates were the same for all lines, and were allocated on a mileage basis, so the main line would always look good compared with the branch lines feeding it. You are right about the politics, the VR was a political football from day 1. Yes I know about the Mildura to Portland freight rates - I think it was for grain? --Michael Johnson 12:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

P.S.: It would not surprise me that a train controller would make a comment like that about the timetable (and if you haven't already, read the third paragraph of my user page to figure what I might think of that!), but it does not follow from that, that goods trains would wait for a day or more just to get into Melbourne Yard. Philip J. Rayment 08:32, 14 October 2006 (UTC)

Well I have to pull my head in a bit there - referring to my notes it was up to 12 hours not 24. American freight trains could run a day late, that is where I got confused. Still that would cause delays, and could cause delivery to be delayed to the next day. --Michael Johnson 12:01, 14 October 2006 (UTC)