Moe-Walhalla locomotives
The Victorian Railways ran two different types of locomotives
on their narrow gauge lines and both types worked the Moe-Walhalla. There were
also several unusual locomotive types that operated on the logging lines that
connected to the Moe-Walhalla and some of these may have operated on Moe-Walhalla
rails for brief periods.
8A hard at work on the Puffing Billy Line in 1984
|
Baldwin NAs (2-6-2)
The early workhorses of the narrow gauge lines were a
fleet of 17 prairie tank locomotives designated the NA class. The first
two of the class, 1A and 2A were built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works
in Philadelphia, USA, and they arrived in Victoria on the 28th August,
1898. The subsequent 15 members of the class were built at the Newport
workshops of the Victorian Railways between 1900 and 1915.
From the start, NAs were pressed into service helping
to build the very lines that they would run on for the next century. It
was an NA, 9A, that pulled the first train into Walhalla on the 15th March,
1910.
|
Fifteen NAs were simple expansion engines but the other two
(2A and 4A) were compound engines. Most of the other NAs saw duty on the Moe-Walhalla
line. There are no official records of 2A, 4A, 8A, 11A or 16A ever running on
Walhalla metals but there is one picture of a construction train somewhere near
Erica apparently being hauled by 4A.
Most of the NAs were cut up for scrap before or soon after the
demise of their narrow gauge lines. The good folk at Puffing Billy managed to
save some and today they have 4 NAs happily chuffing their way between Belgrave
and Gembrook. They also have parts from another 2NAs and work is in progress
to restore them.
Beyer-Garrett G42 (2-6-0 + 0-6-2)
The narrow gauge lines were plagued with a problem:
small locomotives like the NAs could only haul small trains and, in
the Victorian example, this meant the trains were so small, they couldn't
haul enough people and freight to pay their way. Experiments with double
heading actually made the matters worst; a double headed train requires
two crew, twice the coal and water and therefore twice the cost.
Why not simply use bigger locomotives? The tight corners
of the narrow gauge lines, particularly the Moe-Walhalla, prevented
the running of locomotives with a long set of couples wheels. Further,
bigger locos mean a heavier load on the rails, and the narrow gauge
lines were not built to take the extra weight.
|
G42 slumbering in a siding at Belgrave in 1984
|
An attempt to solve this problem was the introduction of two
Garrett locomotives onto the Victorian gauge.Garrett locomotives are effectively
two locomotives in one, the whole loco is pivoted in two places allowing it
to snake around tight corners. Garretts can also spread the weight over many
wheels thus keeping weight on the rails to a minimum.
The two Victorian Garretts, built by Beyer and Peacock in Manchester,
England, arrived in Victoria in April 1926. Plans to construct another two Garretts
at the Newport workshops were never realised. Classed G41 and G42, the two locos
were put straight to work on the narrow gauge. G41 went to the Colac-Crowes
line where it saw out it's entire working life before being cut up for scrap
in 1962.
G42 started life on the Moe-Walhalla line in 1926 and stayed
there until the line closure in 1954. She subsequently worked the Colac-Crowes
line with her sister engine G41. Rescued from the scrappers torch by the Puffing
Billy Preservation Society, G42 is currently being restored to working order.
If all goes well she'll be winding through the Dandenong Ranges early in the
next millennium.