Skip to main content

Transport and plant/equipment used in/on Snowy Scheme

More
7 years 8 months ago #172441 by Dave_64
http://www.roadtransphttp://www.abc.net.au/tv/collectors/segments/s3300321.htmorthall.com/yesterdays-workhorses/47-yesterdays-workhorses/yesterdays-workhorses/1297-thornycroft

The above links were kindly supplied by forum member Grandad, who gave permission for them to posted.
One is of particular interest, an ABC interview with Phil Rye and his ex-Snowy collection, the other is a bit on the Mighty Antars.

Just on that post about a lot of the gear going down the Snowy by rail, no doubt they were heavily involved in moving a lot of the smaller stuff. But when it comes to moving the larger over-dimensional equipment, it would have been way out of gauge as well as too heavy for the NSWGR at the time whom I doubt would have had the necessary freight wagons and besides that, the Cooma line would have more than likely too light anyway. Can't comment on anything on the Victorian side of the border, but would guess that would have been much the same scenario.
Like someone mentioned, the more you dig into it, the more details come to light and the more you appreciate just how big and involved a project it was.
Thanks to all who have contributed, I for one have found this to be of particular interest.
Cheers, Dave_64

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
7 years 8 months ago #172450 by Rob W
I'm no railway expert but when I lived in Cooma from the mid 50's to the late 60's the Cooma Railway Freight yards was a very busy place.

There were the normal daily passenger only services which I think were at lest 2 in from Sydney & 2 out Sydney. One diesel electric (Cooma Monaro Express?) and a steam engine (later diesel) pulled passenger plus freight service (Old Smoky). A freight and passenger service ran from Cooma to Bombala until the early 70's.

In winter there the Snow Specials from Sydney leaving Friday night arriving in Cooma Saturday morning then leaving Sunday afternoon/evening. These were met by local buses & taxis to transport the skiers to the various mountains ski areas, they weren't resorts in those days.

There were various Snowy Scheme train freight only services. These loads were either sent direct out to the various Snowy Scheme projects from Cooma or to the SMA Work Shops located at Polo Flat for assembly and then dispatched out to the Schemes projects via road.

I can remember my father saying that there was thought given to the construction of a rail line to the mountains but was considered a bit to complicated & costly at the time to construct.

I think that you'll find that a lot of the over sized loads commenced from the SMA Work Shops at
Polo Flat. The SMA had their own air strip located at Polo Flat as well.

Dodge AT4-7D Series Model 775, 1971 VH Valiant Ute,
The following user(s) said Thank You: Dave_64, Roderick Smith

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
7 years 8 months ago #172452 by Roderick Smith
The railway aspects have been quite accurate to date, so I have nothing urgent to add. The thread started by lamenting the scarcity of photos of the era. I have seen lots, partly on the web, and partly in various hotels/bars in the region. I am a regular skier in the NSW resorts, driving variously via Barry Way, and the main Corryong - Jindabybne. Another railhead would have been Tumut, for dams on that side of the range. Galong was also a railhead, for the construction of Burrinjuck Dam. Rail was involved with cement and with steel work, and with fuel. I have seen photos of the main alpine way: steep and narrow cuttings. The machinery filled them. AFAIK the road was run like a railway: unidirectional working, based on time of day. Those cuttings are now protected with wire netting to prevent dangerous rock falls.

Roderick.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Dave_64

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
7 years 8 months ago #172454 by hayseed

Roderick Smith wrote: Galong was also a railhead, for the construction of Burrinjuck Dam.

Roderick.


There was also a Light rail line (tramway) from Goondah (between Galong & Binalong) to Burrinjuck Dam used for ferrying Materials to the wall site.

Some of the cuttings ect are still visible today..
www.nswrail.net/lines/show.php?name=NSW:goondah_burrinjuck

Sorry for the Topics Hijack Dave-64

"Be who you are and say what you feel...
Because those that matter...
don't mind...
And those that mind....
don't matter." -
The following user(s) said Thank You: Dave_64

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
7 years 8 months ago #172455 by Dave_64
Just on Rob's observations re rail going into Cooma. The Cooma ( and then Bombala line) branched off at Goulburn. The other two lines that may have serviced the Snowy area, would have been the Tumut line, starting from Cootamundra, via Gundagai or the old line that ran down to Tumbarumba, crossing the Hume at Tarcutta.. The latter two were only minor branch lines and would not have been built heavily enough to handle even mildly weighted trains. The Cooma line was similar, although it was always possible that it could have been upgraded. Either way, you still would have had the problems of overwidth (called out of gauge loads) unless you loaded these wide loads a fair way south, maybe even Mittagong? Which would be unrealistic to load something in the Sydney metro area onto a float, take it that far, then load it onto a rail platform carriage, transport it a couple of hours and then have to reload it back onto a road low loader.. I'm not sure how far the staging depot at Polo Flat was from the Rail yard at Cooma, but whichever way you go about it, there would have been a lot of manhandling freight from rail wagons onto road trucks (and floats).
I have no doubt that Cooma freight yard was a 'very busy place' indeed, as Rob W said. There would have been heaps of stuff, parcels, small packages, spare parts in fact anything that would fit within the confines of a railway wagon.
I would still say that anything of any size, scrapers, dozers, rear dumpers, FEL's generators, turbines etc would have almost have to have been transported from a major capital city by road. Simple logistics say that Sydney had an almost bottomless deep water port complex for unloading imported gear. Yes, I concede that some of it could have been imported in CKD form and assembled on site. But when it came to the big gear (and it was amongst the biggest available in it's day) it had to go to the Snowy by road. Small urgent parts etc, COULD have been bought into Cooma by plane, but again, unrealistic to think that anything of any bulk size would have been transported that way, we simply did not have cargo aircraft in that time to carry anything of weight.
Which brings up another query, massive amounts of fuel would have also been required for the project. No doubt a lot of that could have been taken in by rail (although still requiring transhipment by trucking, be it in bulk liquid or drums) to the various sites.
It is worth reading about the politics involved in the Scheme, the to-ing and fro-ing between Commonwealth and State Governments . The Snowy Scheme was under the Defence Dept umbrella , remember it was first cobbled together just after WW2. That is worth a book on it's own and quite a few have been written over the years.
Also, a promise was made to graziers/farmers who would benefit from the irrigation that would become available once the Scheme was completed, way too deep to go into on this forum. Suffice to say, it did capture a lot of public votes, even through a Federal election.
I am certainly no expert in all this, have read quite a bit about it and was lucky enough to have worked on the last dam (Talbingo-Thiess Bros.) as a grease monkey. Even then as a hairy-backsided kid had an interest in the big gear and trucks that was coming on site. Had a motor bike and if we heard of something of interest coming in, and wasn't actually working, would go a few miles out the road for a stickybeak. Probably where I first fell for Cannington/PCT Pete's. They were certainly something to behold in their day.

I am sure there would be many who can still remember the old railway line still in use (even if only serviced by a single diesel railcar) which cut across the highway at Coolac and then followed the Hume all the way to Gundagai, then Tumblong before shooting off towards Tumut. In fact I'll bet there are also blokes who would have also remembered Bateups paper trucks sorting their papers onto different loads, with a roaring fire going in a 44 gallon drum outside the wreckers at Coolac opposite the old pub. Bloke who had it ran it under the name of "Dicks" for a long time.
Apologies if once again I have wandered off topic a bit, but it was and hopefully will remain,(both the Snowy and the transport involved) apart of the coming of age of Australia. Something we should and can, all be proud of.
Almost forgot where the other old rail line crossed the Hume just south of Tarcutta. When the old weighbridge was still in the rail yard, would be quite a few who would have been dragged in there by the various authorities to be weighed and written up! Probably another topic worthy of a piece on this forum.

Cheers, Dave_64

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
7 years 8 months ago #172599 by Dave_64
One last dumb question on this topic, and seeing those Euclids lined up on the side of the Hume at Benalla jogged my memory.
Bloke I worked with many years ago, operated plant down the Snowy and he told me that Kaiser on one of their projects down there, were using both Euclid belly dumpers as well as twin bowl Le-Torneau scrapers (NOTE, twin bowl! NOT twin power!). Cable operated and used to load the rear bowl after the first, via a mirror above the windscreen. Never even seen a photo of them (over here), have seen photos of both cable and hydraulic versions overseas.
He COULD have been having a loan of an impressionable young rooster like me, but always possible I suppose. Same bloke told me how they got the name "Widow Makers", before electric steering, had pull clutch steering, like dozers, and when going downhill if you reefed the wrong clutch, she would "cross" steer!
Dave_64

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
7 years 7 months ago #173713 by andy950
The Peterbilt is definately on go cup road,rans rom Gundagia south to tumut, apart from being sealed and a bit wider it near exactly the same today, where the road disappears of the right side of the photo it sweeps around a left hander and goes down past the abbitoirs at south Gundagai.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Dave_64

Please Log in to join the conversation.

  • BillyP
  • Offline
  • I wish i could remember all the things i have forgotten...
More
7 years 7 months ago #173721 by BillyP
Yep...........
the old Tutts building in South St Rydalmere, was where Wabco built the scrapers & haulpak rear dump units.in NSW.....
These were all completely assembled and tested there , then broken down to whatever, so as to be transported by road
to where ever................
Once they got the tick at Rydalmere , any further problems were then the domain of Wabco Distribution
766 Woodville Rd ,Villawood. (the sales and service arm)
The yard was an L shaped block with the yard entrance around the corner in Malta St.
This was where you would see old Snowy from PCT / Canningtons , back the old Peterbilt float complete
with dolly , with a scraper (or whatever) on board, from the street into our yard , making it look soooooo easy.
This was where i worked as a Field service engineer (grease monkey)...... in the 60s..........
Also sold from Villawood were Atlas excavators...Yale loaders...and Komatsu dozers etc
These were delivered from the wharfs to our yard mostly by Johnsons floats.....in a sort of PKD condition.....
(Partly Knocked Down) then we assembled as required...........
As i understand..........the earthmoving side of WABCO was taken over by Komatsu.........so the Komatsu rear dumps
now being used, started out as Haulpack units................
..........................Billy..............................

I CAME INTO THIS WORLD WITH NOTHING & STILL HAVE MOST OF IT.........................

I used to be a truck driver,
but i am now not a truck driver ,
on a good day i can remember
that i used to be a truck driver.
The following user(s) said Thank You: Dave_64

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
7 years 7 months ago #173798 by rex
Gentlemen
Thanks for the innovation to contribute with regard to PCT / Cannington involvement, my association commenced after PCT sold the equipment to Kingston Heavy Haulage. Shortly after this transaction I took the job to manage Kingston Heavy Haulage, during my time at Kingston I found Max Hickey to be a gentlemen with absolute integrity, we became good friends and I still think about the day at his funeral with the genuine Peterbuilt badge attached to the coffin, Max was a true truckie, blue singlet and all.
PCT did not sell their right to trade and therefore continued with Max Hickey operating more or less as an agent, taking in work and then subcontracting to available Companies. My experience with Snowy Hydro is recent when we delivered seven new and removed equal number of old Transformers in and out of Tumit one.
Rex

Making a small effort to save the history of road transport in Australia by being in front of Simms
The following user(s) said Thank You: Dave_64

Please Log in to join the conversation.

More
7 years 7 months ago - 7 years 7 months ago #173942 by Brocky45
This is a very interesting topic for a Yank. Is this Snowy Scheme similar to our TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) post depression era flood control, hydro, and navigation project???Also is it located in the area of highway 20 northwest of Cooma??? All I have is a big national Aussie map. Any more pictures will be appreciated.
Last edit: 7 years 7 months ago by Brocky45.

Please Log in to join the conversation.

Time to create page: 0.728 seconds