Annual Report 1881

This is exciting and a bargain to-boot! I won this earlier this week on Ebay and it arrived in the post this morning.

It’s the Annual Report for the Commissioner of Railways for Queensland Government Railways in 1881 (published 1882). Think about that; this dates to the time Ned Kelly was having a shoot-out at Glenrowan a thousand kilometres to the south!

It’s packed with details about stock and locomotives and traffic and every conceivable detail of what was then still an embryonic network. It includes a map of the system which shows in effect four separate railways starting in Brisbane, Bundaberg, Rockhampton and Townsville and reaching inland. The Northern Railway only extends 55 miles to Ravenswood Junction with an extension to Charters towers under construction and a route surveyed as far as Hughenden. Significantly, there are no plotted intentions to connect these separate railways with a line following the coast. 

This copy comes without a binding – so I’ll get that sorted – then she will sit in Clarabelle for quiet contemplation and reading on quiet nights when the insides are fitted out. 

And the bargain? $14.38 for a piece of QR history! 

I’m a happy man!

Before and After

Oh Bliss! With my wife away for the weekend and Chester on school holidays I bundled the pair of us off to Clarabelle for a couple of days. I had the Monday off so we camped two nights onboard and, although a little cold, t'was a splendid time for the pair of us! We have a proper mattress in the main bedroom so sleeping is comfortable and a camp stove and gas lights provide us with the cooking facilities and light we need to make an over-night stay enjoyable.

And I managed to get a fair bit done to the northern side during the day. Mostly cutting out rot, sanding back and painting but I didn't get to a finished stage that I could photograph. So I thought this time around I'd show a couple of before and after pics of work on the interior.

Then, before restoration

These are two pics of the lining of the carriage in the dining area. In the first pic some work has already been done. Toplights nave been fabricated and installed, droplights rebuilt and reglazed, rub-rails removed, refurbished and refitted, lining below rub-rails replaced and straightened, window sills fabricated and the bulkhead on the left build from scratch.

Now, restoration almost complete

In the second pic the main difference is a few coats of paint. The table has also been made and installed and the seat relocated. This still requires the excess paint scrapped off the windows and some sanding back of some rather heavy-handed bogging up of holes where luggage racks were attached but this is a dramatic improvement over the first pic, don't you think?

Luggage Racks

Most of the fittings in Clarabelle were stripped out at some time in her past, probably soon after she was decommissioned in 1990. This included all the metal work that could be salvaged for scrap or repurposed. Door locks, handles, grab rails and other fittings were removed and probably melted down. Luggage racks were also removed but many of these found their way into people's homes as novelty shelving.

So I've had to refind all kinds of bits and pieces which, if they are still available, are now classed as antiques and attract prices to match! Luggage racks regularly turn up on Ebay which is my main source for them and I now have several of them - probably enough for my intended uses around the inside of the carriage.

It was while collecting luggage racks that I became aware of there being two types and I've been able to piece together a bit of their history from a variety of sources.

The older types have the 'QGR' motif and are usually bronze. Frequently these have been painted over in the colour I now call Deep Indian Red. They appear to have been fitted to carriages well into the 1950s and originally Clarabelle would have been decked out with this kind of luggage rack.

The second type of rack have the 'QR' motif. These are often chrome-plated and can be polished to a high shine. I think that these started to appear in trains in the 1960's.

At the top is the older type of luggage rack support with the QGR motif while below is the more modern type with just 'QR' in the lacework

Beggars can't be choosers and I have to take whatever I can find so I now have a mixture of these two types of luggage racks ready for installation with some already installed. And it's when I came to installing them that I realised that they come in a bewildering range of sizes! The racks on the market have been sourced from a variety of different types of carriages and thus were required to be all different lengths. The longest I have is 2.4 metres long and fits across one end of the carriage.

Authentic luggage racks have the carriage number stamped into the back of the mounting plate of the supports. Not that forgeries are a problem! While luggage racks used in NSW were subsequently copied and sold through home wares stores, so far as I know this did not happen with QR luggage racks. If it has ends that resemble either of the above, you can be assured that it is the genuine article!

I would be interested to know if any readers can fill in some more details about the history of these racks. When did they change from the old type to the new type? If you know, please drop me a line or add a comment on this blog.

A modern type rack in gleaming chrome-plate installed in the carriage

Professional Photographer

Just thought I'd throw in these pics taken by Advertiser photographer Nigel Parsons for the Sunday Mail. These pics weren't used in the final article that came out last Sunday.

Looking along the inside

Contemplating more work over a coffee in the dining area

It was probably the hat that got this pic excluded

Another move

It's been a while, over a year in fact! But the inteveneing 12 months has seen my family and I move to Adelaide and take up new lives and jobs in this wonderful city. We intend for this to be a permanent move and so have spent a good part of the last year planning the move of Clarabelle over to South Australia to join us. And that happend last month when she arrived on the back of Mario's truck, delivered to the new site at the St Kilda Tramway Museum.

On the back of the truck, leaving Wellington

Clarabelle now stands on a small plot sublet by the Tramway Museum to the SA Finescale Modellers club of which I'm now a member. She's much more accessible for me here being just an easy 35 minute drive from my new home so hopefully I'll be able to make some more serious progress on her restoration and refit!

Stay tuned!

Safe and sound at her new home in Adelaide

... And here are a few more pics of the big move.

Getting ready to load at the Wellington end, Mario checks his truck

Uncle Purrie checks out the alignment

and up she goes!

On arrival at St Kilda the truck moves Clarabelle into position to drop the rails before moving forward

Abbs cooks snags for all the helpers while Clarabell is unloaded in the background

Unloading in progress

Mario, Abbie and me pose for a pic when the job is done

Fixing the gutters

As I alluded to in my previous blogs, I've had a significant change in life with a move for the whole family to Adelaide so I can take up a new job. All the demands of a new job has meant that I haven’t been able to find time to update carriage restoration work. In fact, there hasn’t been much time or opportunity to actually do anything of late but, on the drive across from Sydney, we did manage to spend a couple of days at Wellington doing some work. This was an opportunity to fix up the gutters which, as you will see, were in need of some attention. 

One of the first jobs I completed when I got the carriage back in 2005 was to put a waterproof membrane across the whole roof to protect it from further damage. Originally there were two layers of canvas that had been soaked in paint and linseed oil covering the timbers but, by the time I got to it, this roof had not been maintained for well over a decade. The top layer of canvas had mostly flaked off and the second layer had broken through in places to reveal the timber underneath.

First I scraped the whole roof removing loose and flaky canvas then applied a special primer that the membrane would stick to. I chose a product called Emerclad which was like a thick paint. For joints and cracks I applied a special bandage soaked in Emerclad to maintain the continuity of the membrane across the gap. This extended down into the gutters that run the length of both sides running the bandage across the bottom of the gutter and up the outside.

This system has received no further attention from me for the last five years but on a recent visit Mick Saffioti pointed out that there was something wrong with the gutters and water was getting through. I got up and checked and, sure enough there was a problem.

The gutters before my attention

Looking along the length of the carriage you can see that the membrane is still good, holding water along most of its’ length. The problem is that the outer edge of the membrane has separated from the wooden gutter and water was able to get into the gap.

In close up the membrane can be seen as still capable of holding water but it has separated from the wooden gutter along the edge.

 

Looking across the roof the Emerclad membrane was mostly in good nick but there was some cracking that would require patching while I was up the ladder fixing the gutters.

Cracking across the roof

After a day and a half up and down ladders with all the paints, primers, bandages and tools, I was exhausted but the job was done! This time I extended the bandage and membrane up and over the outer lip of the gutter so that, even if it does separate again, water won’t be able to get in quite so readily. I managed to get some patching done as well elsewhere on the roof but I really need to completely recoat the roof next time I’m out there. I guess that roof maintenance is something I need to pay a bit more attention to in the future!

The new gutter

A quick visit

My life is about to undergo a significant change. I’m taking the family to Adelaide for a new job. It’s a daunting prospect but full of promise and possibilities. But at this stage, it’s a matter of packing up our lives in Sydney and moving over.

And where does Clarabelle fit into this new life I hear you ask? She’s definitely coming with us, with the prospect in a year or so of having a small acreage in the Adelaide Hills where we can relocate her. But at this stage the best I can manage was a quick drive up to Wellington to drop off a few bits and pieces that I’ve accumulated for her that don’t need to go to Adelaide with us just yet.

I managed to coordinate this trip to coincide with a mate of mine passing through on his way to a big party in Gundagai. Mick Saffiotti lives in Brisbane and has been a Guard for QR since he was a young man. He is also a keen collector of all things QR including carriages. In the past he has turned up odds and ends that will go towards completing Clarabelle and I have no idea how to get a hold of them otherwise. He’s also a good mate who will fetch “Pick Up Only” items from the Brisbane area if I win them on Ebay. In fact he came bearing a beautiful old luggage rack that he had picked up for me some time ago. We spent a happy couple of hours nattering and poking and prodding the old girl, swapping the kinds of info that are impossible to find anywhere else. We even had a cup of tea at the table in Clarabelle with his long-suffering wife Julie. I learnt a hell of a lot in those few hours!

Me, Mick and Clarabelle



The untouched southern end. This is what remains of the original paint. Another detail Mick pointed out was the significance of the ‘RP 7-87’ that can be made out on the solebar on the corner closest to the camera. It means the last repaint was in July 1987.



After Mick and Julie left I had half a day to myself with few tools on hand so I slapped some paint on the interior of the western wall opposite the bathroom and dining area. Every little bit counts!