A Running Shed is the important area where locomotives are prepared for their day’s work. In the early hours of the morning, the workers lit the fires that heated the water which provided the power to drive the 20 or so tons of machine and the loaded wagons it pulled. In the several hours that it took for steam pressure to build, the workers oiled, greased, cleaned and polished the machines as well as checked the locomotives’ preparedness for work. Four of these powerful, heavy machines could be accommodated in the Shed.
This original Running Shed was located at the north end of the Workshops across from the Main Store and Saddlery. It was entered by four massive jarrah and corrugated iron doors. Through these ran two sets of rails that continued on into the other areas of the Workshop.
These rails were connected to run onto the rail system that was built by the Millars’ Company and this was, in turn, connected to the yard loop installed by the WA Government Railway in 1895. At that time the area was known as Waigerup (Wagerup) and was a few kilometres south of the Waigerup Station. The first Millars’ mill built at this location was just 90 metres off the Government Railway line. The first loop was later joined by as many as four other loops and, so I’ve read, these were often completely full of wagons of cut timber waiting to be taken by the WAGR trains to the ports.
The Millars’ rail also ran, via a zig-zag system along the Bancell Brook, up the Darling Scarp to mills at Waterous, Hoffman, Nanga Brook and for a few years, at Klondyke. This timber was added to that initially cut at Yarloop or was re-cut and planed at Yarloop. Just in front of the Running Shed was a small Sand Shed where locomotives took on a special sand that could be poured on the track to help them on the steep slopes. In a room next to the Running Shed was a store for coal or charcoal but the locomotives used the cheapest available fuel – wood from the mills. The charcoal was probably that used by the blacksmiths.
The first locomotive at Waigerup was a small Baldwin 040 (four central wheels) saddle tank engine 7111 built in the USA in 1884. When the Running Shed was built this may have been the first locomotive to occupy it. This engine was given a few names in its time at Waigerup, ‘Coffee Pot’ (probably a generic name for small shunting engines) ‘Beetle’ and then ‘Kia Ora’. This was later joined in 1896 by another powerful Baldwin engine named ‘Karri’. These became part of a massive railway that had, in 1909, grown to 40 locomotives, pulling 800 wagons over 350 miles (560 km) of railway.[1]
Allan Ward, Hon. Curator.
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[1] From ‘The Phoenix Rises Very Slowly’ Part 36, November 2024.
The Old Running Shed (Graham’s Yarloop Photo Club Photos).
The Old Running Shed with the lines connecting it to the Millars’ and WAGR Railways (Shire Pre-Fire Inventory, 2015).
Baldwin 7111 and Karri on the Zig Zag (Photo from the ‘Westralia Magazine’ 22 May, 1897 in ‘Rails through the Bush’).
Above and below:
The last two locomotives to occupy The Shed – The 176 G Class Steam & the Clive Diesel (Shire Pre-Fire Inventory, 2015).
The Sand Shed (Shire Pre-Fire Photos).
The Running Shed is Building 37.
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