Ararat

If you want to see an example of a severely rationalised yard, look no further than Ararat!

The line from Ballarat reached Ararat in 1875. It continues west to the South Australian border, and other lines branch off here to Maryborough (1890) and Portland (1877). There were two signal boxes here (A and B) opened in the 1890’s. Ararat grew to be a large and busy busy yard, with a loco depot being built after 1914.

B Box was the first victim of yard rationalisation, being demolished in 1984, with the train control office following in 1988, and the loco depot closing a year later. ‘A’ Box closed in 1996 but was cosmetically restored and relocated adjacent to the dock platform.  During the mid ’90’s the lines west and south of Ararat were converted to Standard Gauge, while the line to Ballarat had its services suspended, until 2004, when the broad gauge line was rehabilitated, and layed into the dock platform.

There are only mere glimpses of the station in this gallery, as the main focus is on the yard infrastructure. Other great sites where you can view more recent images of Ararat are at Vicrail Stations, and VicSig.

Les Brown has given us permission to link to his train pics site, which contains some great images of a time past.  Go here to view a shot of the roundhouse at Ararat loco taken in January 1968, There are also some beautiful night photos from 1975 here.

Below the gallery thumbnails and the map, and I have placed an eyewitness account of the death of Ararat from a train crew perspective. With thanks to Gavin Potter, who allowed me to pinch the text from his website.

As mentioned above, here are some recollections about Ararat from Gavin Potter:

At the end of January 1985 I arrived in Ararat. After learning the roads and signals, and being reassessed on diesel locomotives I was let loose driving. Ararat ran to Melbourne (via Bacchus Marsh, Meredith and Cressy), Dimboola and eventually Wolseley (South Australia), Warracknabeal, Portland and Mt Gambier (South Australia) (when Hamilton was closed in 1986), and Maryborough via Avoca and eventually to Dunolly and Carisbrook.

Ararat was a large loco depot with 50 loco crews, a large loco and wagon repair facility, a large Marshalling yard where most trains were re-marshalled, fully interlocked yard with signal boxes at each end of the yard, shunter”s around the clock, train examiners, admin staff and a train control centre. Slowly the end was coming. ”B” Box was closed and removed when the CTC was completed to Wolseley. Trains weren”t re-marshalled as often reducing the number of shunter”s needed. Train examination was done at Portland or Dimboola for grain trains, train control was moved to Melbourne and in late 1987 the end was announced for Ararat as a loco depot. We went from running the Overland and other Interstate trains between Melbourne and Dimboola to coming in at the normal sign on time to be available for 8 hours of doing nothing while watching Melbourne and Dimboola crews run through on the trains we use to run.