Rescued by Another Arthur

Last Sunday’s post when I blamed one Arthur Hayes about filling my small mind about more trackwork, and more complexity to implement around South Brisbane Interstate on my layout.  Well I have been thinking about this non stop ever since.  Luckily my request for information regarding South Brisbane and its oil siding was answered by another Arthur.  This time it was Arthur Robinson (the original from A R Kits fame).  He provided me with a link to a site that the Queensland Government has those allows access to various digitised aerial photos from the past.  Well Arthur attached a photo from 1983 that shows where the siding for the tankers were located.  In this shot there was something that looked like 4 open wagons sitting in the siding.  I also went back through my track plans of South Brisbane and from 1982 there was what was called these sidings the outside sidings.  I logged onto the website that Arthur provided and went trolling through the years prior and following 1983 and obtained many more photos from this locations.  So I think the issue is now solved.  What I’m still looking for is any photos from ground level of the wagons in this siding.

The last few days, I have been going through almost a hundred old Railway Digest magazines from 1988 back to 1982 so far.  Well don’t some of those turn up a few more interesting facts.  In particular September 1984 has a two page description of S.R.A. Operating in Queensland.  One says that there was a Total siding at Acacia Ridge.  No doubt they also received fuel tankers.  The magazine in question also states that South Brisbane had a siding for Koppers Bitumen products.  Now putting 2 and 2 together and getting 7, we can see from the SDS website that Ampol used to have some bitumen tankers - NTBF wagons.  So that matches what I had previously been advised about Ampol having a siding at South Brisbane.  Maybe Koppers were taken over by someone, or they took over from someone around 1982/3/4.

This is a cropped photo of South Brisbane Interstate from 1983.  This was obtained from the Qld Government website and is image QAP4209012.JPG.  Storage tanks for fuel can be seen centre top.

This is one view of the track and signal diagram at South Brisbane.

Now what that means is that I may have to increase my wagon fleet for a few wagons to cater for these two locations.  I may also have to try and squeeze in a couple of oil product trains from Grafton heading north, or at least add some wagons onto an existing train.  Doing this will certainly cause some trains to be over length for the loops.  So that might also add some more interest into the operation of these trains and their return workings south.  I was also looking at ways to also incorporate my Auscision car carrying wagons into the timetable, so I might try both options.  A new train to Clapham Yard and Acacia Ridge Yard for the car carrier traffic and an oil train with some potentially other traffic to Acacia Ridge and South Brisbane Yard.  There was also limestone traffic that went to Rocklea (a location which I do not model), which is between both Acacia Ridge Yard and Clapham Yard.  Hmmm!  I wonder if I can run another siding off the section between Acacia Ridge Yard and Clapham Yard so that it sits above Acacia Ridge Yard to hold just one track for these wagons.

Lots of things to contemplate.  I love having these types of problems.