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Thirroul Railway Depot
The Thirroul Railway Depot, at Thirroul, New South Wales, opened in about 1917 and closed in April 1965. During that time it was a major servicing destination for the steam locomotives that ran on the Illawarra Line. The depot was located a little north of Thirroul station and was bounded by Church Street and the lower part of Sea Foam Avenue. After its closure most of the buildings and structures were removed. Only the crew barracks remain on the site at the corner of Church Street and Lawrence Hargrave Drive. The depot area is still owned by the Transport Asset Holding Entity and is used as a storage facility. The barracks have been rented by an artist's cooperative. Overview Thirroul was one of the major depots that were built by the NSW Railway Department. At one time it employed about 450 men. It consisted of a roundhouse engine shed capable of accommodating eighteen engines, a 90 ft. turntable, a general office, machine shops, ash pits and an elevated coal stage whe ...
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Thirroul, New South Wales
Thirroul () is a northern seaside suburb of the city of Wollongong, Australia. Situated between Austinmer and Bulli, it is approximately 13 kilometres north of Wollongong, and 73 km south of Sydney. It lies between the Pacific Ocean and a section of the Illawarra escarpment known as Lady Fuller Park, adjacent to Bulli Pass Scenic Reserve. Name Thirroul was originally called Robbinsville in 1880 by its settler community after a local landowner, Frederick Robbins. In 1887 the Railways Department opened a railway station in the town, and sometime later officially adopted the term "Thirroul". The source for this suggestion was probably Archibald Campbell, then owner and editor of the Illawarra Mercury, a man who was interested in indigenous terminology. His original manuscript transcription of the aboriginal word for the cabbage tree palm which flourished in the area was ''Dthirrawell'', which was later transcribed as Thirroul. As the word circulated, in 1892 a Port ...
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Thirroul Labor Branch
Thirroul () is a northern seaside suburb of the city of Wollongong, Australia. Situated between Austinmer and Bulli, it is approximately 13 kilometres north of Wollongong, and 73 km south of Sydney. It lies between the Pacific Ocean and a section of the Illawarra escarpment known as Lady Fuller Park, adjacent to Bulli Pass Scenic Reserve. Name Thirroul was originally called Robbinsville in 1880 by its settler community after a local landowner, Frederick Robbins. In 1887 the Railways Department opened a railway station in the town, and sometime later officially adopted the term "Thirroul". The source for this suggestion was probably Archibald Campbell, then owner and editor of the Illawarra Mercury, a man who was interested in indigenous terminology. His original manuscript transcription of the aboriginal word for the cabbage tree palm which flourished in the area was ''Dthirrawell'', which was later transcribed as Thirroul. As the word circulated, in 1892 a Port K ...
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Diesel-electric Locomotive
A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is conveyed to the driving wheels. Early internal combustion locomotives and railcars used kerosene and gasoline as their fuel. Rudolf Diesel patented his first compression-ignition engine in 1898, and steady improvements to the design of diesel engines reduced their physical size and improved their power-to-weight ratios to a point where one could be mounted in a locomotive. Internal combustion engines only operate efficiently within a limited power band, and while low power gasoline engines could be coupled to mechanical transmissions, the more powerful diesel engines required the development of new forms of transmission. This is because clutches would need to be very large at these power levels and would not fit in a standard -wide locomotive frame, or wear too qu ...
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Macdonaldtown, New South Wales
Macdonaldtown is an urban place in Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 4 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, adjacent to the suburbs of Newtown, Eveleigh and Erskineville. Macdonaldtown is part of the local government area of the City of Sydney and informally part of the region of the Inner West. The locality is around Macdonaldtown railway station, on the Inner West line of the Sydney Trains network. History The area was originally part of a grant made to Irishman Nicholas Devine, who arrived in 1790 as the first principal superintendent of convicts. Devine built his homestead near the corner of Erskineville Road and George Street. An error about the naming of Macdonaldtown is often repeated in publications - viz. "A Mr Macdonald, who owned a large ironmongery at the corner of George and Market Streets in the city, lived near the present Macdonaldtown station and was a major property owner here." The source of the n ...
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Railway Men At Thirroul Circa 1930
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prepared flat surface, rail vehicles (rolling stock) are directionally guided by the tracks on which they run. Tracks usually consist of steel rails, installed on sleepers (ties) set in ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels, moves. Other variations are also possible, such as "slab track", in which the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a rail transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than rubber-tyred road vehicles, so passenger and freight cars (carriages and wagons) can be coupled into longer trains. The operation is carried out by a railway company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facili ...
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Coupling Rod
A coupling rod or side rod connects the driving wheels of a locomotive. Steam locomotives in particular usually have them, but some diesel and electric locomotives, especially older ones and shunters, also have them. The coupling rods transfer the power of drive to all wheels. Development Locomotion No. 1 was the first locomotive to employ coupling rods rather than chains. In the 1930s reliable roller bearing coupling rods were developed. Allowance for vertical motion In general, all railroad vehicles have spring suspension; without springs, irregularities in the track could lift wheels off the rail and cause impact damage to both rails and vehicles. Driving wheels are typically mounted so that they have around 1 inch (2.5 cm) of vertical motion. When there are only 2 coupled axles, this range of motion places only slight stress on the crank pins. With more axles, however, provision must be made to allow each axle to move vertically independently of the others without ...
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Fireman (steam Engine)
A fireman, stoker or watertender is a person whose occupation it is to tend the fire for the running of a boiler, heating a building, or powering a steam engine. Much of the job is hard physical labor, such as shoveling fuel, typically coal, into the boiler's firebox. On steam locomotives the title ''fireman'' is usually used, while on steamships and stationary steam engines, such as those driving saw mills, the title is usually ''stoker'' (although the British Merchant Navy did use ''fireman''). The German word ''Heizer'' is equivalent and in Dutch the word ''stoker'' is mostly used too. The United States Navy referred to them as ''watertenders''. Nautical Royal Navy The Royal Navy used the rank structure ordinary stoker, stoker, leading stoker, stoker petty officer and chief stoker. The non-substantive (trade) badge for stokers was a ship's propeller. Stoker remains the colloquial term used to refer to a marine engineering rating, despite the decommissioning of the la ...
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Railroad Engineer
A train driver, engine driver, engineman or locomotive driver, commonly known as an engineer or railroad engineer in the United States and Canada, and also as a locomotive handler, locomotive operator, train operator, or motorman, is a person who drives a train, multiple unit or a locomotive. The driver is in charge of, and is responsible for the mechanical operation of the train, train speed, and all of the train handling (also known as brake handling). In American English, a hostler (also known as a switcher) moves engines around rail yards, but does not take them out on the normal tracks; the British English equivalent is a shunter. Train drivers must follow certain guidelines for driving a train safely. For instance, in general, train drivers are encouraged to favour longer stopping distances as this promotes vehicle health, safety, and passenger comfort. Career progression For many American railroads, the following career progression is typical: assistant conductor ...
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Lily White Medal 1917
''Lilium'' () is a genus of herbaceous flowering plants growing from bulbs, all with large prominent flowers. They are the true lilies. Lilies are a group of flowering plants which are important in culture and literature in much of the world. Most species are native to the northern hemisphere and their range is temperate climates and extends into the subtropics. Many other plants have "lily" in their common names, but do not belong to the same genus and are therefore not true lilies. Description Lilies are tall perennials ranging in height from . They form naked or tunicless scaly underground bulbs which are their organs of perennation. In some North American species the base of the bulb develops into rhizomes, on which numerous small bulbs are found. Some species develop stolons. Most bulbs are buried deep in the ground, but a few species form bulbs near the soil surface. Many species form stem-roots. With these, the bulb grows naturally at some depth in the soil, and eac ...
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Bulli, New South Wales
Bulli ( ) is a northern suburb of Wollongong situated on the south coast of New South Wales, Australia. History Bulli is possibly derived from an Aboriginal word signifying "double or two mountains", but other derivations have been suggested. Originally inhabited by Dharawal Aboriginal people, European wood cutters worked in the area from about 1815. The area was once abundant in Red Cedars, these are now still seen but thinly. The first permanent European settler was Cornelius O'Brien, who established a farm in 1823 and whose name was given in the pass at O'Briens Road south at Figtree. Bulli soil is also the primary source of soil and foundation of Sydney Cricket Ground, which makes the SCG being seen traditionally as one of the most spin-friendly international cricket grounds in Australia. Coal The Bulli Coal Company opened a mine in 1862 on the escarpment and built cottages to house miners and their families. Coal was transported by rail from the mine to Bulli ...
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Steam Locomotive
A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomotive's boiler to the point where it becomes gaseous and its volume increases 1,700 times. Functionally, it is a steam engine on wheels. In most locomotives, the steam is admitted alternately to each end of its cylinders, in which pistons are mechanically connected to the locomotive's main wheels. Fuel and water supplies are usually carried with the locomotive, either on the locomotive itself or in a tender coupled to it. Variations in this general design include electrically-powered boilers, turbines in place of pistons, and using steam generated externally. Steam locomotives were first developed in the United Kingdom during the early 19th century and used for railway transport until the middle of the 20th century. Richard Trevithi ...
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Coaling Tower
A coaling tower, coal stage, coaling plant or coaling station is a facility used to load coal as fuel into railway steam locomotives. Coaling towers were often sited at motive power depots or locomotive maintenance shops. In the early years of railways, coal was shovelled by hand into locomotive tenders, the first attempt in Britain to replace manual labour by gravity in the refuelling process being found at Shildon, County Durham, where coal drops were built by the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1847. In time, railway companies constructed more elaborate coaling towers, made from wood, steel, or reinforced concrete (ferroconcrete). In almost all cases coaling stations used a gravity fed method, with one or more large storage bunkers for the coal elevated on columns above the railway tracks, from which the coal could be released to slide down a chute into the waiting locomotive's coal storage area. The method of lifting the bulk coal into the storage bin varied. The coal ...
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