The Wolgan Valley Railway

Shay locomotive on the Wolgan Valley railway

 

The Wolgan Valley Railway 

Shortly after his retirement from the NSW Department of Public Works Deane was engaged as a consultant by the Commonwealth Oil Company to manage the design and construction of a private railway in the NSW Wolgan Valley to provide access to their shale oil works at Newnes. 

     The railway is approximately 50 km long, linking with the western line of the NSW Railways at Clarence Junction in the Blue Mountains. It mainly follows the course of the valley hemmed in by precipitous cliffs. Deane concluded that it was inevitable that the railway would require 5 chain curves and 1 in 25 grades. Two short tunnels would be required. The volume of freight to be handled would be around 1,000 tons per day, which with the heavy grades, ruled out a narrow gauge line as being in- adequate for the task. 

     The choice of locomotives was an important issue. No locomotives in Australia at the time would be suitable for regular use on the line. Deane found that there were several designs of locomotive in service in Europe and North America that could meet the requirements. His preference was for the American Shay locomotive which had several desirable features: it had great hauling power, because the whole of its weight, both engine and tender, were available for adhesion; unlike conventional locomotives it was geared, so a very even turning force was applied of the wheels and it was able to start easily on the ruling grade; it had a very short rigid wheel base which enabled it to traverse very sharp curves; the length of the boiler tubes was very short, a little over 3 m, so the difference of the water in the boiler level in the boiler on steep grade was not serious. Its only disadvantage was that to avoid excessive vibration, speed must be limited to around 25km per hour. The Shay locomotive was a unique design with three cylinders vertically mounted beside the boiler, which was offset from the centre line of the locomotive. An articulated shaft and gears transmitted the power to all the wheels on the locomotive and tender. 

     The conference of engineers-in-chief that Deane chaired in 1903 met in Melbourne, and was requested in March of that year by the Common- wealth Minister for Home Affairs to review a large amount of information that had been accumulated about the proposed Trans Australia railway. Deane as chairman was to formally report its findings and recommenda- tions. Dean submitted his final report in July advising the Minister that the line should be standard gauge and follow a route from Kalgoorlie to Port Augusta via Tarcoola. It could be constructed in three to four years at a cost of just over £5 million, and by the tenth year turn an annual profit of £18,000 on a revenue of £400,000.

 

Shay locomotive on the Wolgan Valley railway

     Four of these locomotives were imported for operating on the line. For most of its operating life there was one train per day with a load of 400 tons, double headed over the steepest part of the line. It left Newnes at 8.30 am and retuned at 4.30 pm. This one train carried both freight and passengers. For a brief period in 1909 there were two trains per day.

     Most of the railway was laid with second hand 75 lb double headed rails purchased from NSW Railways and the remainder of the line was laid with rather lighter second hand flat bottomed rails from Tasmanian Railways. 

     The railway opened in 1907. There were serious delays in commissioning the works at Newnes, and initially the products carried on the line were not oil produsts refined at Newnes but metallurgical coke and shale for retorting elsewhere. The first refined oil was despatched in 1911. These operations were not profitable and the works closed in 1913, with train service reduced to one train per week. Various efforts were made over the years to achieve profitable operations at Newnes, but none was successful. The railway was abandoned before World War II. The rails were taken up during the war and sent to Tobruk.

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