When grain went by train

The 1968-69 harvest was moved entirely by rail, from scores of grain silos along railway lines that criss- crossed the region.

Mr Crouch said the archives were of special significance in light of Pacific National's decision to pull out of rail freight in Victoria.

The archives include a premonition that the days of rail were coming to an end, and that road transport was taking over.

The archives feature a letter from Peter and Gisela Helbig to Laurie and Ruth Crouch written in April 2004 and a news report from the Ararat Advertiser dated February 6, 1969.

Mr Helbig was acting railway district superintendent during the 1968-69 harvest, which he described as a `tremendous challenge'.

"As the season moved towards its peak, records were broken everywhere; in fact I would say a record number of records were broken this season," he said.

Marmalake wheat storage at Murtoa was filled to capacity and rail lines such as through Goroke were flat-out.

Mr Helbig said Goroke station itself was expected to rail 929 wagon loads, which was more than all stations on that line had ever railed together in any previous season.

"To accomplish this, up to 10 trains a day, for seven days a week, with up to three diesel engines moved along this line during the peak of the season," he said.

Mr Helbig said that during the `tremendous onslaught' across the Wimmera, dumping grain onto the ground was `not a done thing'.

"It was a matter of putting everything through silos and the task of the railways was to carry away in railway trucks as much as was pouring into the silos from road trucks on the other side," he said.

Eight steam engines were released from mothballs to help move the grain.

Barley was the first grain to `gush' from the silos into rail wagons. A total of 1973 wagons of barley were moved.

Concurrently, a record oat crop was being stripped and railed to Portland, with 3200 wagon loads discharged at Portland by February 1.

Barley and oats created their own records, but Mr Helbig said they were dwarfed by the season's wheat crop.

"Only a few days remain and it is expected that the railways will have delivered the equivalent of 9231 four- wheeled bulk wagons of wheat to Marmalake this season. The previous highest was 7683 wagon loads during the 1964-65 season," he said.

"Thousands of wagons of wheat have also been moved to Geelong, and currently train loads of Western District wheat are being railed to Dunolly to fill that storage."

In 1964-65 the railways moved 10,183 wagons of `overflow' wheat; in 1968-69 the railways had moved 17,325 wagons of `overflow' wheat by February 3.

In his letter to the Crouches, Mr Helbig lamented the demise of rail, hastened by one restructure followed by another and another, ebbing staff morale, poor leadership, more and more political interference and increasing pressure to cut costs.

But he said the main factor was unequal competition from road transport.

"With all funding for road construction being in the form of `grants', but all funding for railway works in the nature of `loans', the railway was crippled by a hugh debt burden, seen by the general public as a `failure' and `loss'," he said.

"Taxes and charges for road use were so badly distributed that they favoured the competition - the road transport industry - which reduced the railway's share of freight to a shadow of its former self."

Mr Helbig quoted a report by Sir Henry Bland which revealed that if road construction was seen as a 12-inch bitumen layer, the first inch only would be needed for use by ordinary motorists. The other 11 inches were due to costs accommodating road transport.

"And then Sir Henry looked at road funding, and found that only the first inch costs were borne by road transport operators, the other 11 inches by ordinary motorists subsidising road transport," he said.

"Makes you think, doesn't it?"