Goulburn Loco Roundhouse Preservation Society president Stan O’Donnell and volunteer Dennis Mitchell near Loco 5917 which hauls picnic trains and is maintained at the historic Goulburn depot. Photo: John Thistleton.
Ninety years after it was first installed at the Goulburn Railway Roundhouse, a huge locomotive turntable continues to operate as one of only three remaining in NSW.
Ninety feet long with a little weatherboard operator’s office at one end that travels with the revolving turntable as it repositions monstrous locomotives, the turntable replaced the original one assembled in Goulburn in 1918.
Steam and diesel locomotives use the turntable so often the Goulburn Loco Roundhouse Preservation Society recently spent $70,000 on its maintenance and cutting out rust.
Society president Stan O’Donnell said the turntable was used two or three times each week. The other working turntables are at Junee and the NSW Rail Museum at Thirlmere.
Demand for the Goulburn turntable is ironic given that in 1986 the NSW State Rail Authority as it was known at the time wanted to demolish it and the surrounding roundhouse facilities.
When railwaymen got wind of this, they were having none of it. Instead they formed the Goulburn Loco Roundhouse Preservation Society which has continued ever since to preserve and present the story of rail in Goulburn.
Today, of the 110 volunteers who belong to the society, 20 are active at what is now known as the Goulburn Rail Heritage Centre.
Skilled at diesel mechanics, restoration of diesel engines, coach work and plumbing, all their talents are put to good use for income-generating work, according to Stan.
Among the regular users of the roundhouse’s facilities is the Picnic Train. Operating heritage steam-hauled train tours throughout NSW, this popular service has three steam locomotives and a historic diesel loco at the roundhouse where they are maintained. Other commercial diesel locos are maintained there as well.
Rail First which owns and leases out locomotives next door to the Heritage Rail Centre is a regular turntable user, as are privately-owned locos garaged at the roundhouse where some of them were restored. Some are used on vintage trains around NSW.
Stan said in NSW’s early days of rail, steam trains could travel for about 200 miles before they needed to stop for refuelling with water and coal. “So the trains (from Sydney) would get here and change the engine, replenish it, change crews,” he said.
Dennis Mitchell, a volunteer who worked on the railways for 55 years, said when rail first arrived in Goulburn in 1869 the steam trains would move into a straight shed, rather than a turntable, for servicing.
As more destinations were added on the main southern line and more trains came on stream, work in Goulburn gathered momentum. The first turntable installed in 1918 was 75 feet long, and was replaced by the existing 90-foot turntable in 1935.
Stan said the maintenance and change of crews contributed to numerous jobs.
“At its peak, there were 750 people based just here; that’s not counting those who were at the station or the goods yards or anything like that,” he said. “They had barracks here too, where the engine crews from Sydney would rest up before their next shift.
This aerial photograph shows workshops and loco sheds surrounding the 90-foot turntable, which brings engines to Goulburn for regular maintenance. Photo: Goulburn Loco Roundhouse Preservation Society.
“When (the roundhouse) started as a museum in 1986 most of the volunteers were ex-railway men,” Stan said. “They have grown old or passed on, but there are still probably 20 old railway men still members of the society. Most would be from the diesel era,” he said.
After a career in health and on his retirement in 2013 Stan decided to indulge his lifelong passion for rail and community work, and joined the society. He has absorbed the extensive history of rail in Goulburn and along with fellow volunteers, leads tours of the roundhouse, workshop, locos and rolling stock.
“I can do a tour in half an hour or three hours, depending on how interested visitors are,” he said.
A point of difference for the Goulburn museum was allowing visitors to walk underneath a steam engine to see its workings.
“This ability is available at very few museums in the world; you can actually walk under a steam engine,” Stan said. “We take visitors through diesels, the whole diesel as a feature; we let them up into a passenger carriage.”
Dennis added: “It’s more of a hands-on approach than at Thirlmere or Junee; you can climb into the engines whereas most museums won’t let you do that.”
Goulburn Rail Heritage Centre, 12 Braidwood Road, Goulburn, is open on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. More information can be found here.
