Moonem's Proposal and the Casino to Bonalbo Branchline

[boris_G]

G'day everyone,

I noted a reference in Ian Kirkland's "The Forgotten Railways of the Northern Rivers" to a company by the name of Moonem wanting to submit a proposal to the Railway Commissioner to electrify the then-planned Casino to Bonalbo Branchline. Ian had not annotated this reference, and me being the sort that I am - that is, quite curious about anything to do with electric locomotives - cracked open the phone book, found Ians number, and called him.

I mean, thats what you do, right?

After a quite informative hour long discussion (and a later invitation to lecture at the Alstonville Historical Society, that invitation issued just before the COVID lockdown last year, which has sadly delayed any lectures indefinitely), Ian pointed me to the ballpark of where I'd find the reference. See here:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/130314933?searchTerm=moonem%20casino%20bonalbo

I've also attached a cropped screenshot of the article to this post.

If I had known at the time I hung up the phone to Ian about exactly what proverbial rabbithole I was going to fall into, I may never have made that call!

If nothing else, I must say the story of Moonem, and the personalities associated with it, some of which may surprise you, is a Hell of a tall, rousing tale, a bit of a scally wags caper, and one I much enjoy. I just gotta get it out of mere thoughts and into book format.

At this point, most of my materials are packed away, or in a backup I've not sorted yet, but not yet in storage. I plan on going through these in the coming weeks to prepare to put various possessions into storage, in my resources I have obtained is various information on Moonem itself, a small amount of further information regarding the unsolicited proposal to electrify the branchline, and most importantly, materials from the Parliament of New South Wales, a report written by one Colonel Bruxner, then Transport Minister, regarding his rationale behind the cessation of works of the Guyra to Dorrigo Branchline and the Casino to Bonalbo Branchline. This report, I believe, may be quite illuminating to many as regards timelines and such.

Additionally, I've obtained various draft plans and survey plans, as well as having made GIS plots on contemporary SiX Maps and NSW Planning Portal Maps, and I've conducted a few on site surveys of various sections of the as-abandoned branchline easement between Casino and Mallanganee.

At this point, I know my posts on the Facebook group have been rather well received heretofore, so this is my attempt to try a writing and presentation style I feel far more comfortable with, a test to see what response my writing style, content, and resources may receive. I much prefer short academic report style writing, suited to a scientific technician (which I have worked as - nuclear physics and chemical engineering, as well as telephony and electronics) and I also prefer visual resources over a wall of words, despite how punctuated and syntactical I write. My writing style has been suggested for use on blogs, but I have no interest in the constant grind of keeping new and fresh content up to a blogs audience, I again prefer short report style on forums because I can attend to any writings when I feel the desire to. I am quite sadly aware, one cannot do this type of writing on Facebook.

There are other reasons I prefer the written word, I believe they will become apparent as time goes on.

Cheers!

Boris.

[admin]

I wonder if electrification at the time would have been worthwhile ? Was the traction available in electric engines to cope with the terrain ?

[boris_G]

At this time, I've gotten very little details about the actual plan for the proposed electrification itself, I'm hoping to get to the State Archives while I'm in Sydney next month, and request a file, I've attached a screenshot to this post, you'll note the date range mostly matches. I'll also see if I can wind the thumbscrews down on the ARHS people, given they've asked me to program a solution to enhance the features of a major set of index files that are quite cumbersome for the casual users to access properly, if what they've asked me to code actually works. I do have some details of various other unsolicited proposals, but none of those various proposals include a discussion regarding what motive power, what electrification scheme, and exactly what rationale was being used to justify the idea.

Please excuse my bad quips and misquotes, they seem to always fall flat in written form, and "emojis" don't quite do the job for me, given they're so small, they all look alike to me!

If I survey what other countries were doing at that time, in similar or harsher terrain, and consider that electrification over the Blue Mountains was considered at least by Bradfield (I've been told about Bradfields "four zones," the City Railway being Zone 1, the fourth zone was presumably all the way to Perth if I remember what I was told correctly - no annotations, but this from a colleague of mine I went to uni with), and once again in 1937, I know at least the 1937 report is on Trove, but I've not seen anything from Bradfield or his team in the ARHS reprint of the Institute of Engineers reports presented in 1926.

I think, for what its worth, if you take the City Railway, 1,500V DC, simple catenary (and possibly compound for the Richmond Range Pass section via Simpkins Creek and the spiral described in Byways of Steam 18 and referred to on the 1922 survey plans of the trial survey via Tabulam), and either motor-converter sets or early mercury-arc rectifier sets, 3 phase AC traction supply at 33kV - see second attachment and the following link - you'd have a pretty reasonably accurate picture of the "state of the art" circa-1928. Technology did not advance so quickly back then, thats something to consider.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/94081099?searchTerm=moonem%20electricity

The name Donoghue is far more well known as the electrical engineer who established and operated the Electric Light and Power Supply Corporation, which was the company that operated the Balmain Power Station prior to takeover by the ECNSW and subsequent shutdown. I refer to the fine volume "The Powermakers" by Mark Fetscher. Like the call I made to Ian Kirkland, I made another such call to Mark, he admitted he has little to no information about Donoghue, and was utterly shocked to find out what I'd dredged up about Moonem, let alone anything about electric railway lines to seemingly nowhere. Likewise, employees of what is now Essential Energy but would've worked for either ECNSW or NRCC have likewise been shocked about all this Moonem stuff.

I will need to find the reference, but I am aware Donoghue suggested a proposal to electrify the Bonalbo Branchline because it offered a pre-surveyed easement to establish bulk rural electrification from the proposed Moonem plant at Swan Bay to Bonalbo. That meant quite a bit of hard work had already been done in regards to the establishment of the easement.

As for my own personal take on it? There are two odd looking things sitting in my backyard, covered by tarps, and the casual observer, they'd make little sense. My nosey landlord has been told they're "rolling storage units" for my extensive overflow of machine shop tools and they sit on an established "hardstand" using a product called Geohex and 10mm gravel. They are anything but rolling storage units, they are the body shells of a dual unit 7.25" gauge electric locomotive I've been planning and building for quite some years now, БМ8301 Lady Tahlia, named after one of my nieces, the little redheaded girl in my profile picture on Facebook. While 4'8" and 7.25" are quite some worlds apart, some basic principles are the same - just at scale. My personal take does not reflect what I'd presume the original traction or locomotive equipment may have been, its my personal recreation for my own enjoyment, utilising my knowledge from my former employ - both technical roles and railway administration.

Hope this helps!

[boris_G]

Ok, starting to draw the information together. Please see screenshot attached and this link:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/94081023?searchTerm=moonem%20casino%20bonalbo

While the article is dated 5/7/1929, and the file I'm intending on perusing at the State Archives regarding the representations to electrify certain railway lines has a start date of 23/10/1929, I'm hoping I get lucky, considering that Donoghue is stated as "getting out" (preparing?) figures to enable Moonem to quote the Railway Commissioner a price for electrical supply. It has been implied previously to me that Donoghue was making an unsolicited proposal to the Railway Commissioner, and as it appears, no official notation from the NSWGR has been made in the public arena. That does not preclude it being in files in places like the State Archives or the ARHS.

Second screenshot - from the Kyogle Examiner, its a different editorial take on the "Moonem Scheme" article I'd posted from the Northern Star the following day. The Northern Star omits this footnote the Kyogle Examiner has:

We understand the Moonem consulting engineer is working out a very low rate for bulk supply with the object of inducing the railway department to electrify the Casino-Bonalbo line, thus enabling the company to extend its rural supply scheme to the Bonalbo district...

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/234709994?searchTerm=moonem%20casino%20bonalbo

So, seemingly, we can presume that Donoghue was desiring a presurveyed easement to place high voltage power lines on to bring Bonalbo into the bulk rural electrification being proposed by Moonem in 1929. This is supported by contemporary practice, both electrical and telephony transmission lines are situated in railway corridors.

As for the technology that may have been used, please attend the third screenshot - a very low resolution copy of a plan of what appears to be a take on the locally built electric mainline locomotive 4501/ 7100, sometimes known as "The Green Beetle." The most immediate difference one can see is the provision of "steering platforms" which are quite similar to pony trucks or pony bogies under steam locomotives, insofar as they help guide a long, rigid wheelbase locomotive into tight corners and provide support for the locomotive, while spreading its weight over many more undriven axles, thereby lowering axle load. It is, in my mind, a literal NSWGR take on a NYC electric motor. The later Green Beetle looked almost the same, except no steering platforms.

For traction systems, I refer to an email sent to me by the now late Kaj Pindal of Canada, who lived in Copenhagen as a child, and paraphrasing Kaj, the 15" gauge trams he built as replicas of the Copenhagen trams he grew up with before immigrating to Canada worked on "1914 technology - no electronics, no plastic." While exceedingly simple, and likely quite wasteful of electricity, they literally worked by brute force, using a "cut in" system of starting resistances. At that point of electric locomotive development, starting resistances were quite commonly used, and exist in the Green Beetle, and the 46 Class, if not the later 85 and 86 Class (of 1979 and 1983 vintage), which were both electro-mechanical camshaft control as well, no thyristors or other major semi-conductor electronics. I don't imagine three phase AC (Italy and the never completed PB&SSR in Wales) or industrial frequency single phase AC (German, Swiss and Austrian) would've been used, due to the "Mother Country" British take of using 1,500V DC. At the time, India and Soviet Russia were also using 1,500V DC, all three countries converted to 25kV AC post-1960. Electric rack railways were being commonly built in the Swiss Alps at this time, the Gotthardbahnen, which was a rather steep line though the Swiss Alps, was electrified in 1922.

So, technically, the electrification would've been possible, looking at far more demanding lines, and the state of the art in the British Empire at that time.

Would it have been worthwhile?

Refer then to this article: https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/99145541?searchTerm=moonem%20casino%20bonalbo

Mining At Moonem Question For Private Enterprise Coal in the Moonem fields was suitable for use for power generation, but the economic side of the question was one for private enterprise to investigate, stated the Chief Geologist for the Mines Department (Mr. Jones) in Lismore...

Consider, that the time this article was published, 1946, was during the formation of the Joint Coal Board, who recommended to the Railway Commissioner to electrify the Blue Mountains Line for higher throughput of coal in the immediate post-war period as an economic recovery strategy. The indication here is that the JCB was not interested in developing the Moonem deposits, to the immediate South of Swan Bay, and left that to private enterprise, if any. By the time, Moonem had ceased to exist, and the company that had handled its franchises post-1932 or so including the operation of the Ballina Town Powerhouse, the Electrical Construction Company of Australia (based in Brisbane), was in the process of being absorbed into NRCC, if that had not happened already - I'll have to check my notes when I get the loan of the NRE history book from one of my colleagues.

However, this advice by the Chief Geologist flies in the face of almost every single report I've read regarding Moonem coal, that the quality of the coal was not of a high enough quality to justify the expensive of development. Three major sources dispute this - a historian in Bonalbo referring to the Bonalbo Coal Mine (I'll have to check that annotation, Bonalbo is in the same coal seam as Moonem and Nymboida), Donoghue in various press releases 1928 and 1929, and surprisingly, the CFMEU in their book regarding the Nymboida Coal Mine. While amateur historians unfamiliar with grading of the quality of coal can certainly be called into doubt, and Donoghue may have had an ulterior agenda with the development of Moonem Power Station, I find it exceptionally difficult to believe the CFMEU would put to print such a massive factual error. Remember, I too might happen to be a rank amateur, but I was born and grew up in Lithgow, so yes, I know coal.

To put into perspective why I've spoken at length about the coal deposits themselves, gives you an idea of whether the overall Moonem scheme was worth developing. It so happens my unofficial hypothesis - which has quite some traction from the electrical history guys - is that Koolkhan Power Station is simply the NRCC version of Moonem's planned Swan Bay Power Station, and around two decades later. I'd also have to propose that the Great Depression likely put paid to Moonem as it put paid to the construction work on the Casino to Bonalbo Branchline itself, given hat was Colonel Bruxners justification for the cessation of works and dismissal of the construction workers. The 1920s wasn't called "The Roaring Twenties" for no reason, as I'm starting to see!

Just as an aside, Moonem has become a little pet project of mine since I spent six months in 2019 as an apprentice electrician, and made the call to Ian Kirkland to discuss what exactly Moonem was. Its interaction with the branchline, while tangential, was more than just a passing thought. Given Donoghue himself is a bit of an enigma, I've faced an uphill battle trying to locate any real resources on Donoghue, most namely, his reports regarding Moonem, not the extracts from the newspapers of the time.

[boris_G]

Just an addition to the previous hypothesis of Donoghue seemingly wanting to build electric lines in railway easements, see:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/234732664?searchTerm=moonem%20railway%20electrification

Cr. Moore said the [high voltage electrical] lines could be constructed along railway lines...