Portland Goods Shed
This is what one end of Portland (NSW) yard looked like sometime in 1977. The unusual wagons just to the right of the goods shed is a cement wagon and cement wagons were fairly common in Portland yard.
While the station was on the outskirts of town the Portland Cement Works was right in the middle of town and it was linked to the NSWGR via privately owned line that featured a very nasty grade against loaded trains. Empty wagons would be dropped off in Portland yard by government trains and, even in 1977, steam locos operated by the cement works would run up to the Portland yard and exchange loaded wagons for the empties.
In 1977 the cement works had a former NSWGR 26 class saddle tank loco in service. It was in such poor condition that it could just manage to pull two loaded hoppers up the grade to Portland yard. Before that they had used several different tank locos including an Andrew Barclay 0-6-0T.
I’m not sure if the cement works are still in operation but by the late 1980s the works were looking to dispose of their locos. The 26 class was donated to the rail museum in Lithgow while the Andrew Barclay was given to Barry Dean – a well-known modeller in Orange – if he could remove it from the site in Portland.
Now Barry is a very resourceful fellow so there was never any doubt that the loco was going to be delivered in Orange. And so it was, on the back of an Army tank transporter. The sight of a steam locomotive travelling through town on the back of a huge Army truck was enough to bring out the local television station and the images were broadcast right across the central west.
Sadly I wasn’t there to get any photos.