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angryskarloey · 8 months

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Early Victoria State Locomotives - 1866-1872.

A/N.: This is by no means comprehensive, nor does it start at the very beginning of railways in Victoria. It is an excuse for me to say Buzzwinker several times. Most of the information here comes from one source. This is what we will call the 'context' portion. For those wanting to read about only about Buzzwinkers, see the next portion. I wish to inform @jobey-wan-kenobi this is your fault.

Characters.:

- The Protectionists - a faction in the Victoria State administration, with two key goals. Reclaiming as many local sheep runs as they could, and keeping industry development in the state.

- Thomas Higinbotham - Engineer-in-Chief of Vic Rail.

- Francis Longmore, William Wilson, Joseph Jones - various Ministers for Railways (this being a Govt position, its holder changed regularly.)

- William Meikle - Chief Mechanical Engineer of the system, from around 1870 to 1877. Also known as the poor bastard holding the whole together.

- The locomotives - a mixed bag. Some decade-old ex-Geelong & Melbourne, Stephenson-built tank engines, and a clamp of rigid English tender engines, consistent of some designs by Daniel Gooch, some by Archibald Sturrock (of the English GWR and GNR respectively), as well as a few others from Beyer, Peacock. Those still extant by the mid-1880s got letter designations, and I have used these where applicable.

As of 1866, the effective roster stood at 77 engines (discounting the G&MR engines, which were stored rusting in a shed.) Of these engines, most of the work was being done by Sturrock's B-class 2-4-0, and O-class 0-6-0. The track so far extended nearly two-hundred miles from Sandhurst to Ballarat, with steep gradients everywhere except the original 45-mile route from Melbourne to Geelong.

The authorisation to construct a new North Eastern Main-line to Wodonga arrived shortly before Meikle - the new route would increase the route mileage of the Govt. Railway by 72%, and therefore more locomotives would be needed.

Only a few engines had so far been built in the colony, so Francis Longmore, although anxious to promote local construction, was on unsure footing. The Melbourne & Hobson's Bay (not incorporated into the state system at this point) had constructed a couple, and opened its line with them, but they'd had relatively brief careers.

In 1862, Enoch Chambers, a Melbourne firm, had put together a Robert Stephenson 2-4-0, which came with a set of spare wheels, axles, springs, and boiler tubes. Little Collins Street Foundry used these, as well as copies of every part of the existing engine, and outshopped the 'First Victorian' that October. This sort of thing would become commonplace as time went on.

Longmore's investigation had found that colonial builders would be unable to fulfil a large order of locomotives, so instead sent for 14 of Sturrock's designs from Beyer, Peacock. However, when William Wilson took over as Minister for Railways, and got wind of this, he sent a telegram cancelling part of this order (six of the 14 engines.) He believed that with Meikle as his CME they could, in fact, build sufficient engines locally.

This telegram could only make part of its journey by wire, and took six weeks to reach Beyer, Peacock's works. Wilson got confirmation of the stopped contract another six weeks later, and instructed Meikle to start work on eight engines at the railways' own works at Williamstown. Local ironworkers, up to this point out of work, were given this good news in late October, but this only lasted a week before a second telegraph came from B.P., saying they'd already purchased the relevant material for the cancelled locomotives, and that therefore the cancellation would incur a penalty.

Williamstown only had sufficient boiler-plate to build one locomotive, so at any rate, Wilson decided to let the B.P. contract stand, but told Meikle to construct a single prototype 2-4-0. Work on this design began in November 1870. The engine was not wholly new, more an amalgamation of the best of the English designs, as Meikle only had a very small team (probably less than five) in the drawing office.

In January tenders (tenders for supply, not engine tenders) were called for, to make the complex cylinder casting, which Williamstown were not yet equipped for. Meikle also began to rebuild the five J-class 2-2-2s into 2-4-0s with smaller driving wheels. The intention was that these could be installed on the Geelong - Melbourne section, and some of the existing B-class 2-4-0s could be put to work in the North East.

The first of these rebuilds showed great promise, consuming less fuel than a B, and keeping time well. Two more followed by May 1871, but with plenty of engines to go around for the time being, the remaining two only appeared in the latter half of the next year.

There was a secondary reason for this slowing of work - uncertainty about the gauge. For a while it was mooted that the North Eastern line would be converted to 3'6", spoiling all of Meikle's efforts. But this would surely have upset the North Eastern backers, and so Longmore, back in office, contented himself ensuring all future locomotives were locally made. Hopefully.

After work on Meikle's all-new 2-4-0 had commenced, he had also begun to develop a new 0-6-0, slightly smaller than an O-class but able to draw the same load, albeit more slowly. Williamstown turned out the 2-4-0 in January of 1872. No.100 it was, and a proud achievement. It would go on to draw the first train over the new North Eastern main line a few months later.

The railwaymen, flushed with success, had probably hoped to build the new 0-6-0s at Williamstown, however there were not sufficient facilities. Plans to the tune of £1,190 for a new boiler-shop were approved, with the likely idea of building more 2-4-0s, however there still wouldn't have been capacity for the six-coupled engines.

Wilson had, while in office, ordered six 0-6-0s from the Yorkshire Engine Co., which started to arrive in May 1871. Meikle was less than impressed - the 'Yorkies' were expensive (nearly three grand each) and shoddily built (you could talk them into coming apart.) Meikle wrote a disgruntled letter, with a laundry list of problems and concluding that no English company would accept machines such as this. The whole debacle gave the protectionists plenty of ammunition - when the Commissioner called tenders for ten more 0-6-0s to Meikle's new design, he gave only six weeks, keeping the English buildes out, and put on a 20 per cent import duty, to prevent builders in New South Wales weighing in.

Longmore, to the horror of the free-traders, also gave any fledgling Victorian builders a fortnight extension, and in answer to criticism cited Meikle's letter re. the 'Yorkies'. He also terminated the highly expensive English agent's contract, for allowing such dodgy work to be sent on.

The new 0-6-0 was neat but austere, with the object of competing with English builders on cost - Meikle did away with unnecessary brightwork - stove-pipe chimneys, plain splashers and painted dome covers, which prompted the nickname 'Greenbacks'.

There were a handful of very new foundries in Ballarat. The Victoria Foundry, the Phoenix Foundry, Victoria Ironworks, and Soho Works. Each had built a small number of 3'6" gauge locomotives for customers in Western Australia and New Zealand, mostly for use on timber tramways. All were quite eager for the job, and in the end, the contract for the 'Greenbacks' was awarded, tentatively, to a ready and willing Pheonix Foundry.

These new machines, the 'Q' class, might well have been the last new 5ft 3in gauge engines, with the govt. still reeling from the decision to make the new North Eastern line broad-gauge. Highinbotham and Longmore, the latter a strong narrow-gauge advocate, struggled over this issue for another year.

The new lines in the north-east were laid light, with 50lb iron rails, and the large, rigid English engines absolutely hammered them. The effect was nearly as disastrous as a break-of-gauge would have been - of the 102 engines rostered or ordered when the new light lines were confirmed, only a handful were light enough for the task. A locomotive of axle load 14 tons could do serious damage, crushing or laminating the rails, and splitting frail wooden sleepers.

There was also no way to prevent badly balanced locomotives being driven far too hard, and the light lines suffered badly. The Americans had solved this with their flexible 4-4-0s, and even the English had locomotives that could manage, but the protectionists wouldn't have it.

Worse still, on the steep light lines the small engines necessary to keep axle loading down would tend to have small driving wheels, and therefore would use a lot of steam to run even at low speeds, with the cylinders making more strokes in the same distance. They simply ran out of steam working at 'high' speeds (25mph) for too long. The large, heavy O class weighed 39 and a quarter tons, and could pull a 200-ton train up a 1-in-50 gradient. A Queensland Rlys. 'C', of 16 and a quarter tons, could only draw 65 tons up the same grade.

It was quite clear by mid-1872 that no local builder could supply all the engines required - the first 'Greenback' would not steam until March 1873, and with Longmore for the time being out of the way on the Opposition, Higinbotham and Meikle asked the new govt. to call tenders in England. This was done, with plans for six engines as a stop-gap measure, and two more light engines, one of a bogie design, which could be used as patterns and copied in the approved manner.

The protectionists were furious about this, and, lead by Major William Collard Smith MLA, or just 'The Major', raised hell in the Legislative Assembly that August. Not only was the Major the Mayor of Ballarat, he was also Chairman of the Pheonix Foundry Board... The idea of a conflict of interest apparently had not reached colonial Victoria just yet. At any rate, the Major, while prepared to accept the two 'pattern engines', he trusted that 'the Government will make an effort to withdraw the contract for the six engines.'

Somebody also raised the possibility of refurbishing the old G&MR engines, but the Minister of Railways tried to placate the protectionists by stating that he would call tenders in just a fortnight for nine more engines to be built locally, but Major Smith was not satisfied. The debate went on for some time. In the event for order for the six engines was cancelled, and with work on the telegraph cables somewhat more complete, this development reach Beyer Peacock in a timely manner.

The next day, 15th August, the Overseer of Locomotives' Office must have been in a state of disarray and panic. Design work for the nine engines may have been underway, but certainly not to a point at which it might tender for the contract with only two weeks' notice, not to mention specifications for the other six locomotives to be prepared. The two designs that came from this flurry of development were rather against Meikle's personal ideas, but are reflective of the state of being at the time.

Longmore had been assured by local ironworkers that local builders could build whole engines, sans wheels and complicated cranked-axles (ever the bane of locomotive builders.) To avoid them, the onus was on Meikle to put the cylinders outside. There were only two outside-cylindered engines on the roster at that point, G&M 'singles' No.34 and No.36, and Meikle therefore objected. He said that 'if you want a perfect engine, you must have inside cylinders.'

The implication of outside cylinders is that, on a small six-wheeled engine, the short connecting rods would create great lateral oscillation, but with the situation desperate, and no-one in the colony being able to make cranked axles, they were a rigid design requirement. For the sake of avoiding importing this single piece, the protectionists almost ended the light lines before they had begun.

#real true railway stuff #history #victoria railways #victoria

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ima-ghost-art · 1 year

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Modern theatre cast st au!!

Musical - Cats!!

Steve wasnt disappointed with the character he was cast with, actually he was quite exited for it, but he was a little confused.

Originally, when he and Robin came to audition into the new show Dustin was working on. (Cats) (seriously the kid was amazing at building sets and helping with the tech side of theatre aswell as offering backing vocals if needed?!) Steve had auditioned for the role of Munkustrap.

There wasnt alot for the role compared to others he had done before, the whole musical itself was basically all song and dance which was a nice change. Sure Munkustrap danced most of the songs, but Steve had trained in both ballet and contemporary since he was little (much to his fathers resentment), so the constant dancing was a fun concept!!

Plus, with Munkustrap, it was more of a singing and narration role, most of the time performing to accompany another actor. He was also a protective cat, so steve thought performing as him would be quite fitting.

When Robin finally came barreling into their shared apartment followed by thier friend Chrissy, with the letters telling them what roles they got, Steve was surprised to see that he was given the Character of 'Mr Mistoffelees/ Quaxo' the magical cat.

"I just dont get it robs... why would they give me Mistoffelees of all cats?" He wasnt unhappy, just confused, Mistoffelees was often given to more... smaller (?) male actors. Which Steve knew he wasnt that small.

"Well maybe its because your an amazing dancer who ive witnessed do like 50 pirouette in a row, AND could easily steal the show, but doesnt like admitting how good he is out of fear people will think hes some rich kid who just gets roles handed to him instead of trying really hard because his parents disowned him leaving him to work paycheck to paycheck while also babysitting to get through performing arts school?" Robin smirked up at him over the copy of the letter telling her she got 'Skimpleshanks the railway cat', the same role she auditioned for.

Chrissy laughed, her role as 'Victoria' also displayed out infount of her, "You know shes not wrong stevie!" Mischief glinted in her eyes as she held her girlfriends hand.

Steve looked to the two of them and huffed, "I can do like 27 not 50." He roled his eyes at the unimpressed look Robin gave him, but it didn't last long before they all laughed.

Steve was pleased for them, he and Chris had met as kids, the two children of rich familys who had convinced thier parents to send them to dance school, who also lived in the same small town, quickly became close before chrissys mother moved her away. Thankfully however, they reconnected back in college away from their controlling families.

They had met Robin in a production of Wicked a couple years later, she was playing Elphaba while Chrissy was Galinda and Steve had the role as Fiyero.

Mid way through practicing the production, there had been a fire in the theatre that had him and Robin trapped for hours in the bathroom. It had left Steve with a pretty nasty concussion too.

While hiding in one of the musty old stalls, they had a heart to heart were Rob had confessed her feelings for their co star and couldnt go through with kissing Steve on stage. He had understood and after being saved from the burning reck of the old theatre, desided to come up with a way to help with Robin's stage kissing problem.

Turned out, after talking with a couple of the kids he babysits, there was an easy change that could be made to the story that fit the character archs better, aswell as not force Robin to have to kiss a boy on stage.

With permission, the kids had taken the script, making a change that left the two women as the love interests instead, while the Scarecrow Fiyero took over looking after Oz. It was an instant hit, pulling out the shows hidden queer themes. Also leading to the now power couple that is Robin and Chrissy, who didnt take long after the first show to confess to eachother!!

Now him and rob share an apartment, with Chris basically living there too even though she had her own apartment and roommate too. All now being told they finally all were cast in the same production again!

"I dont even get to sing my own song though!" He slumped into the sofa, taking a moment to glare at Robin as she chuckled at him from where she sat on the floor between Chrissy legs.

"Yes buttttt you get like the coolest costume and the best dance number all while being serenaded by whoever is playing Rum Tum Tugger!" Robin threw her hand that wasnt being held by her girlfriend in the air as she talked, "Plus Mistoffelees has a bunch of like, jumps and spinnys which is like... literally your favourite thing to do when dancing so dont worry about how you got the role, be exited that you get to do it!!!"

Steve looked down and smiled, "I am exited... it's going to be the first performance with us and all the kids either performing or working front or back of house... plus Jon said hes helping backstage this year and doing promotional work, and Hoppers joining again, I so am exited. I just want this to be perfect Robs."

He looked up to see his best friend giving him a knowing smile. They had worked hard for this, both with unsuporting familys, all the tireless classes, with boring tough part time jobs to afford paying off loans and rent. They worked for this.

Even if this was performing as mystical, jellicle cats on Broadway.

"If it helps," Chis let go of Robin, scooching her legs around her girlfriend so she could move to cuddle into Steve's side. He leaned into her, snorting slightly hearing Robin huff that steve stole Chrissy from her.

"If it helps, I'm almost certainly convinced I know who got Tugger if your wondering who got to sing your song." She beamed at him, excitedly grabbing his hands in hers and pulling them both to be sitting up as Robin came and rested her arms on their legs, "my roommate auditioned for Cats aswell! He doesnt often do shows like this but his dream role ever since I ment him has been Rum Tum Tugger!! Hes really good aswell so if its him I bet you guys would work wonders together!"

Steve laughed and shook his head. "You make it sound like Mistoffelees and Tugger are inlove!?"

The girls gasped! "Steve I know you're a dingus who probably has enough brain damage to stop you from performing, but you HAVE to know of the power couple that is Tugoffelees!?!?" Robin said sounding aghast from where she sat on the floor, hand to her chest and everything!

"Omg EXACTLY!!" Chrissy looked between Robin and Steve, "Tugger doesnt want everything he cant have, stealing the spotlight whenever he can, while misto playfully acts uninterested when every fauns over Tugger, ONLY FOR Rum Tum Tugger to sing an entire song dedicated to Mistoffelees being perfect!?!? I dont think so steve, that has gay and smitten written all over it!!!"

Steve snorted and shook his head, looking at the girls like they couldnt be serious. When he noticed their expressions hadnt changed, still holding firm about this suposed truth for these beloved characters, he looked at them like they had grown a third head.

"They are CATS??" he said incredulously!

"THEY'RE GAY CATS STEVE!!" The lesbians yelled back in unison!

He groaned knowing he wouldnt win this argument, even tho being queer himself and understanding what it ment to have characters like them in media, especially theatre. Still he had never been able to get into any fandoms, even if he did perform in some shows with respectably large ones, much unlike his female counterparts who revealed in needing out one every musical they heard. So honestly the concept of how two cats based on children's poems were gay? Very possible. Was he about to analyse every rendition of the character to determine their sexual preferences?

Yeah no, he would much rather just dance his little heart out performing as said character, than worrying about anyone else's but his owns sexuality.

Plus, he doubted he could even have the same 'romantic tension' with he co star, whoever he was, anyway. He had given up on romance ages ago since his last relationship with Nancy Wheeler, a kick ass reporter who had been writing an article about how the group had gotten the chance to rewrite parts of Wicked, crashed and burned the night of the grand finale.

Steve gave out a long suffering sigh, "Uhhhh fine you win gay cats," he rubbed a hand over his face, "but really chris, your roommate? I thought you said he was in a metal band??"

"Oh he is!" She absent mindedly went to stroke Robin's hair as she spoke, "but he and his best friend are in some of my music classes, they often audition for more 'out there' parts. His most known role was the Phantom in Phantom of the opera, and I think his friend got Michael last year in an off Broadway production of Be more chill, they both auditioned for this show aswell! They have like amazing range as singers!!"

"Well if they get any parts it's going to be nice to finally meet them!" Rob says looking pleasantly blissed out from being pet by her girlfriend. "You've been rooming with this guy for like three years and I dont think I've seen more than a picture of him!"

Chrissy giggled, they all knew her roommate was her other best friend she lovingly called rockstar to the point no one was sure what his real name was. At this point it was a running joke to see who ever could meet him first since the man was often sleeping, or away through out most of the evening and night. Constant clashing of schedules making it so neither him or robin had met the elusive man. Which was kind of shocking since apparently to chis, he was very hard to miss!

"Definitely!! Hes out of state till next week, just before rehearsals start actually, so I was wondering I could stay here till hes back?"

"Do you really have to ask Chris?" Robin asked, making her girlfriend turn to her with a shy smile.

"I love having you here and so does Robs, you practically live here at this point" steve pointed out, "honestly I'd tell you to move in if I knew you didnt like liveing with your other friend so much!"

They laughed, "Steve made a great point love, you should know you are always welcomed here!" After getting a chrissy giggle of approval, Robin stood up, immediately pulling the other up with her!

"Now come on! We just got the greatest job offers yet, we need to celebrate!!" The woman dragged them, all laughing with her, too her and Steve's liquor cabinet. Opening it and reaching in she pulled out a bottle of vodka that Murray, their very... exasperated acting coach, had lovingly gifted them after their auditions.

Robin looked Steve in the eye, a glimmer of something mischievous as she brandished the bottle.

"Presto!"

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