Operations Part 1

The following is in response to a request from John.

Nowa Nowa is located in the steep forested hills of East Gippsland on the Orbost line.

(Image from Google Maps)


Operationally Nowa Nowa existed due to two main products, sawn timber and limestone. These two commodities lasted until the line was closed, but other items were shipped as well. From Harry Grosvenor via Peter Hair we have the following in 1977:

A.P.M (Australian Paper Mills) Pty Ltd (Rocky Camp via Buchan) - Limestone
Buchan Marble Quarry - Dressed marble
Murray E.F. Pty Ltd - Stone crushing
Nowa Nowa Bee Farm - Honey and beeswax out, boxes in.
Rocky Camp Quarry - Limestone
Sawn Timber (from at least two mills in the area).

The rock was shipped out in "O" wagons an G/GY type wagons:
(Note I think the Limestone went in the O wagons and the crushed rock in the G/GY types, but I don't know for sure)

Here is a scratchbuilt version of an O that I have done

From two loading points, this being one :

Photo around 2008-09

Photo from Tony Lamplough late 1970's

Photo from Harry Grosvenor in the 50's

I'm still trying to sort out the second loading point. Any help appreciated!

Researching Nowa Nowa

Thanks to Peter Vincent, Darren French, Harry Grosvenor,Tony Lamplough and the Train Hobby  books "Country Railway Stations" series we were able to put together a reasonably complete picture of Nowa Nowa.

Initially the picture sources covered each end of the station, such as this from Peter Vincent:

Other photos tended to be taken from similar locations, leaving the left side to the back of the goods shed un photographed.

What you can tell though is the two water tanks, the two gangers sheds, a small vans shed next to the closest water tank, and of course the goods shed. We already knew that the passenger station was long gone.

Thanks to Darren French we received a collection of plans that covered various phases of the station layout. Interestingly these often didn't match up well to the photographic evidence, as some were "plans" not what was built. The best of these is below... which gave us a great picture of the layout of the yard, however doubt remained in regards to the sidings behind the goods shed, as we had no photographic evidence to back it up...

At this point we began construction (to be covered in another post) then Tony Lamplough provided some more pictures which confirmed the sidings at the back, then this one...

The Red arrow shows where the old station went to! The green arrow points to a second loading point. We knew of one near where the photo was taken from, and we had two marked on the plan, but until this picture we couldn't confirm it, a single photo that was pure gold!

At this point our primary research was complete, and construction was underway...

Nowa Nowa under construction

Over the last several months Phil and Ashley Hillebrand have been helping me out on a new N scale model of Nowa Nowa in eastern Victoria.

I've been wanting to do this for a long time, and as I was recovering from a major operation I had some time on my hands... So we started :)

You will notice in the pictures that Phil and Ashley are doing most of the work, as I was still very stiff and sore I did the management, recording and brew making!

Cheers
Rob

A new blog!

I've been thinking about doing a blog for a while, mainly to record progress on a new module "Nowa Nowa" which is under construction, but also to record other things as a compliment to my shop website www.aust-n-rail.com.au.

Cheers

Rob