Today was a moment for celebration for the staff of the Mechanical Branch as they watched ex Victorian Railways GY 5127 roll out from the workshops after undergoing an extensive rebuild to convert it to an NSWGR K wagon. The management have described the conversion as being very successful, despite the extremely late delivery of the wagon. With the paintshops still not ready for use, the powers that be have informed me that the wagon will enter service following the fitting of Kadee couplers and continue running in its current condition until such a time that the remainder of the work can be finished. This will include the fitting of underframe details such as brake gear, hoses, handrails and tie rings as well as new brake shoes as the old ones were beyond salvage. It will also be required to beef up the side sills of the underframe so that they are flush with the sides, as per the prototype, however it will be possible to complete this work within a short time frame. It is expected that once GY 5127 is completed and repainted into Gunmetal Grey, it will be renumbered as K 25576. GY 5127 was originally purchased back in 2004 as part of a small lot of model trains, however it was not until 2008  that the decision to rebuild it as an NSWGR K wagon was finally made. Now after two long years, the Mechanical Branch have released their first rebuild into traffic. The management are very pleased with the results of the conversion, and as such have purchased a second GY wagon to under go a similar treatment, GY 16347. Various parts of GY 5172's original underframe will be re-used to rebuild GY 16347's underframe, beyond this, the conversion will be essentially the same as with GY 5127. Upon completion GY 16347 will be renumbered as K 23040.

Happy Modelling
Murringo's Shed Foreman.

From the workshops: New stocks of parts have arrived

Today christmas came early for the Mechanical and Permanent Way branches' workshops. The mechanical branch has now taken delivery of a Callipari K wagon underframe and RU grain hopper body as well as a mountain of various bogies and couplers and many other spare parts. The mechanical branch are slightly less enthusiastic about the arrival (and the subsequent increas in workload) of a badly battered Bergs 1959 BCW cattle wagon, a broken Lloyds 43 class body shell (which appears to be beyond salvage and a Bergs 49 class loco missing the cab and short hood which may be salvageable. It is expected that the BCW will be stripped for parts for the other cattle wagons in the workshops presently and the K wagon underframe will be used to assist in the rebuilding of two ex Victorian Railways GY wagons to K wagons.

Meanwhile the Permanent Way Branch has now taken delivery of some new sections of timber platform and a variety of signal parts as well as a lower quadrant Distant signal arm, several signal lanterns, some ground frames, point rodding stools and various other assosciated components, platform namesigns. I think the time has come to get the navvies off their backsides and into making some sleepers and other parts for the track so that when Mr Postman brings Greg Edward's trackwork manual, things will be at a sufficiently advanced stage to begin the tracklaying process.

That's all for now.
Regards, Evan.
Murringo's Shed Foreman.

From the traffic manager's desk

Recently the Mechanical Branch has taken delivery of a number of new wagons. These include two MLV and a lone LLV louvre van; two D wagons and a BCH coal hopper.

Below are photos of the new wagons (excluding one of the MLVs) as delivered.

 

To the sharp eyed, yes that LLV is indeed actually a GLV (at this present stage). There are plans afoot to rebuild this as LLV 9958, an LLV from the first batch with rivetted underframes, however fitted with end pressings matching the second batch LLVs, which were recoded as GLV. This work however, will not be able to be undertaken until November due to the paper (HSC) work which presently covers my desk.

Regards,

Murringo's shed foreman.