We bought the old Balmoral Village Railway Station building to save it from demolition back in the 70’s. The local ‘Loopline’ train line had been closed to passenger trains and all passenger services were replaced by a bus service. The line was still open to the odd freight train, or it was used as an alternate line to the main line if there was a derailment on the main line, which actually happened in 1978.
For a whole day and night we got all the Sydney to Melbourne train traffic off the main line diverted along our old loopline tracks. We got to see the Sydney to Melbourne Inter-capital Daylight Express and the Southern Aurora rumbling along past our house at 20 kms hr. on our old, little used, light gauge tracks.
We live on this old and now closed line. It was originally the main line south for about 50 years. It came through here in about 1864 and was replaced by the new main line in about 1916. The old line through here is now just a ‘loop’ off the new line.
The original line was difficult for some of the older steam engines, as the gradient was very steep. Digging cuttings through the hard rock of these steep hills was time-consuming and expensive. There is an extremely deep cutting just up the road from here. I was told that it was the deepest railway cutting in the Southern Hemisphere when it was built. This cutting allows the line up through a difficult part of the terrain to the next village that was originally called ‘Big Hill’.
Our village was, at the time, a place to keep and maintain an extra steam engine. When the Sydney train arrived here. The spare locomotive was hitched on to the train and used to pull the carriages up this steepest part of the line. Even so, it was a very slow and difficult job to get the train up the big hill.
There is an old story, and I can’t vouch for its truth, about a bush ranger stepping up onto the very slow-moving train at the front and robbing everyone on the train as he walked down through the carriages, and then hopping off again, not too far from where he got on!
There were originally 7 stations along this part of the original train line, now the ‘loop’. We live right in the centre of the loopline. As we are half way between the two ends of the loop. It was decided that a School would be built at the half way point to service all the children of the track ‘fettlers’ and engine maintenance men that were stationed here.
The school was opened in 1893 and operated full-time until the line was relocated to the new route in 1919 and the population started to decline, as the railway men and their families slowly moved away. The school then operated as a part-time school for a few more years, and then closed. It reopened during the Second World War as a part time school, sharing a teacher between here and the now named village of Hill Top, higher up the line. The school closed permanently at the end of the war. The station remained open until the line was closed to passenger traffic.
Once the line was closed to passenger traffic and the bus service instigated. It was decided to tender all the stations along the line for demolition. The first station to be offered up to tender for demolition was Hill Top station, next door. We heard on the grape-vine, that the only bidder just wanted the tin off the roof to build a chook shed, so only offered $2, won the bid, took the iron off and burnt the building down to comply with the clause that stated “remove to ground level”.
When the Balmoral Village station came up for tender next, we were keen to see it preserved and not destroyed, so we bid the ridiculous price of $250 to make sure that we would win and could preserve it. $250 was about half the cost of the wood to build a new one. We won of course. No-one in their right mind would pay that much for what amounted to a little old wooden shed. A very old wooden shed indeed. It is thought to have been installed in 1864 or there-abouts, when the line opened. Making it the oldest building in the village. We thought it worth saving.
We measured it up and built footings to suit, then hired a crane and low-loader. We picked it up and drove it home to the school in one piece. Then lifted it into place. It was the biggest job that I have ever attempted and it all went like clockwork. It turned out to be the least troublesome thing that I have done. However, I did spend a lot of time planning, preparing and choreographing it.
Once we realised that we now owned all (both) of the public buildings in the village and there is no water works to buy. We could put a motel on Pall Mall and charge all passers-by to pay $200 dollars to pass ‘GO’!
Instead, we decided to sand blast off all the old flaky paint when we sand blasted the old School classroom. We had hired all the equipment for the weekend and had some spare time and ‘shot’ left on the Sunday evening, so we cleaned it back. I bought undercoat and we made some top coat our selves. We bought a one gallon tin of pale yellow oil based gloss top coat, then added an equal amount of turps mixed with mica and talc dust 200# that we had in the pottery for making our glazes. This gave us 2 gallons of paint. This rock dust saturated oil paint is still as good as new today. No drying out or flaking off. The stone particles guarantee that there will be no UV penetration. The little weatherboard waiting room is still in good shape. Well the paint job is anyway.
Interestingly, we noticed that after we cleaned and painted the waiting room. The train line fettlers that passed along the line each few days, saw the station building in its new location and new clothes and waved to us and we waved back. They saw that we thought that the building had some historical merit and was worth saving and restoring.
After that no more stations were offered for demolition. All the others have now been restored and painted creamy yellow! Personal activism does work sometimes.
Well that was 40 years ago, and the poor old wooden sleepers on the platform have been weathering away. I have no idea how old they are. Not 153 years I shouldn’t think. I’m sure that they are not original. Perhaps they were replaced in the 60’s when there was a derailment at the station when a goods carriage came off the line and ploughed into the end of the station destroying the Ticket Office building. Perhaps the original sleepers on the platform were replaced when the platform was repaired?
They are sill in good shape where they are under cover of the verandah, but the exposed ends are rotting away. We have our wet weather clothes line under the verandah and Janine has stopped using it because she feels that it is too unsafe.
I take a day ‘off’ and go down to the timber yard and buy new ‘treated’ sleepers. I slowly remove each of the old sleepers a few at a time, and replace them with the new ones. It all goes pretty much to plane and is finished by the end of the day. However, I still have to put up the new guttering.
Everything goes to plan, except that I drop one of the old heavy hardwood sleepers on my recently damaged and recovering finger, which splits it open again.
No good turn ever goes un punished. I’ve healed the platform, I now have to wait for my hand to re-heal.
Tonight my Fingers Smell of Garlic 
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