HO by Dennis Clarke
The layout is named “Barmedman” because it is based on the actual railway yard and station at the village of Barmedman, which is situated in Southwest New South Wales in the Northern Riverina / Southwest Slopes region. By rail it is approx. 320 Miles, (512 Km) from Sydney, on the Cootamundra – Lake Cargelligo line, between Temora and West Wyalong.
The layout in modeled to represent the era about the early 1950’s to mid 1960’s. As the Barmedman district is a strong grain growing area, mostly wheat, at that time, the yard is dominated by the massive Metcalf grain silo storage complex. This was scratch built from poly water piping and styrene. It is built on a separate piece of board and can be removed from the layout.
The station buildings are a mix of scratch built and kits. The main building and signal box are scratch and the SM’s house, “out ofs” room, men’s toilet, fettler’s shed and goods shed are built from kits. The water tank is from Casula Hobbies with the tank stand being scratch built from styrene strip.
Part of the township nearest the railway, an engineering workshop and fuel depot of “P.J. Reid & Co.”,is scratch built. Some other old buildings are from kits, Trainorama and Anton’s Trains.
Train movements were quite frequent during this period especially during the annual harvest period from late November to early January, with many grain specials transporting the harvest to the Sydney grain terminal, most being for export.
Passenger services were good, with two services each way most days of the week. The up morning service, Tuesday – Saturday, connected with the Riverina Express at Cootamundra. The corresponding down service, Monday – Thursday, arrived at about 6.00 pm after an 8.15 am departure from Sydney. The up afternoon / night service made up part of the Temora Mail connecting with the service from Griffith at Temora. The return down service, after dividing at Temora, arrived at Barmedman at about 9.00 am from an 8.25 pm departure from Sydney, the previous night and would cross with the up day service, at Barmedman, most mornings.
Locomotives were mostly C30T, 4-6-0 with either 6 or 8 wheel tenders, C32 and D50 class when loads required a bit more grunt. Passenger services were provide by 600/700 and CPH rail motors, with a C30T hauled, sometimes mixed train consists for the afternoon service connecting and making up the Temora Mail.
The writer was raised in the district and farmed grain and sheep from the early 1960’s to 1984, and delivered many loads of wheat the massive silo complex. Some of the present day complex was not built until the mid-late 1960’s and is therefore not modeled on the layout.