Narrow gauge at Newport Part 1

Friday Facts and FotosFriday 25 August 2023 FFF 57

Narrow gauge at Newport Part 1

For two decades following the arrival of 1A & 2A from the USA in 1898, Newport Workshops churned out every week on average more than three brand new narrow gauge items of rolling stock. Below is a delightful short article by Ted Godwin describing the arrival of the VR’s first narrow gauge rolling stock. (Used with his permission)On 20th August it will be 125 years since the first two narrow gauge locos were received from the USA. The SS Amana berthed at Victoria Dock on 20 August 1898 after having departed New York on 14 June 1998 and called in at St Vincent in the Cape Verde Islands on 28 June 1898 to top up bunkers with coal, then sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and across the Southern Ocean, calling at Adelaide to unload some cargo before continuing to Melbourne. On board were two locomotives built by Baldwin Locomotive Works, Philadelphia, USA for the Victorian Railways. The locomotives in crates were lightered down the Yarra River to Williamstown and were taken delivery there by the VR on 23 August 1898. For some unknown reason, the VR didn’t place them on the register until 1 September 1898.1A was nearly completely assembled in time for a Parliamentary Visit to Newport Workshops on 8 September 1898. At that time it was said that 2A would be completely dismantled for the workshop staff to inspect it fully (probably to see how the compounding worked).1A was sent to Wangaratta with the first six narrow gauge ballast wagons on 25 September 1898 and commenced running construction trains on the Whitfield line on 1 October 1898. The photos show 1A as assembled in the west yard at Newport ready to be delivered to Wangaratta in September 1898. 1A on the turntable at Moe in 1912. Baldwin Locomotive Works Builders photo of 2A in 1898. Also 2A in service at Wangaratta in 1912. Photos credit PROV, and T Middleton. Ed – 1A operated on the Ferntree Gully to Gembrook line from November 1922 to February 1929. Next week we will look at the massive construction job carried out at Newport to provide all the rolling stock required for the four new narrow gauge lines that the VR operated in Victoria.