Dockside shot with traverser

[Tony Whittaker]

Just to share a screenshot at 18:57 from Rob Bell's Channel 5 series on famous ships, this being the Cutty Sark episode. It's an un-named dock in an un-named country. Just thought you'd be interested. Well, it doesn't look like UK, and the gauge appears wider than standard, suggesting Spain/Portugal. There is an interesting traverser going across the dock at right angles, which the train appears to be able to straddle.

Any thoughts about the photo?

 

[randyrippley]

Sandridge Pier, Port Melbourne, Australia, 1880 (or 1881 according to another website)
photo on both these sites
https://twitter.com/NotableHistory/status/642427441273663488/photo/1
https://www.hotpress.com.au/melbourne/port-melbourne/1871-port-melbourne-pier (you can buy a print on the second one)

You can see four traversers along the length of the dock, and what looks like a vertical boilered steam powered pump

 

[randyrippley]

this chinese site (the link is through google translate) has several transport pictures of old Melbourne - trains, stations, trams and docks

https://translate.google.com/transl....ifeng.com/51380836/wemedia.shtml&prev=search

 

[Tony Whittaker]

Thanks so much Randy, and your links very interesting.

 

[randyrippley]

two more views of the pier on this site
https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/immigrants-and-emigrants/journeys-end/railway-pier-sandridge/

 

[randyrippley]

another photo, steam age
https://cv.vic.gov.au/stories/immig...ys-end/melbourne-port-melbourne-railway-pier/

another here, showing those vertical boilers in use - pumps or cranes?
https://antiqueprints.com.au/shop/a.../29-108-port-melbourne-sandridge-pier-c-1880/

 

[Spamcan81]

Just to share a screenshot at 18:57 from Rob Bell's Channel 5 series on famous ships, this being the Cutty Sark episode. It's an un-named dock in an un-named country. Just thought you'd be interested. Well, it doesn't look like UK, and the gauge appears wider than standard, suggesting Spain/Portugal. There is an interesting traverser going across the dock at right angles, which the train appears to be able to straddle.

Any thoughts about the photo?View attachment 58120

Fabulous photo. Bags of interest in there. Presume it's 5' 6" gauge.

 

[John Webb]

Would the vertical steam boilers be powering steam winches to assist ships in loading/unloading goods?

 

[randyrippley]

Would the vertical steam boilers be powering steam winches to assist ships in loading/unloading goods?

My guess would be they're most likely to have belt or cable drive to winches mounted in the ship rigging, but there doesn't appear to be any belt or cables - or a drive wheel. Nor can you see any connected steam pipe to a steam winch.

 

[Taunton]

Presume it's 5' 6" gauge.

Actually 5'3". The various Australian states each chose separate gauges, and continue with them for their main networks. Victoria and South Australia both chose this Irish gauge, while New South Wales, the largest system (it was long the largest industry and commercial employer in the Southern Hemisphere) is standard, and Queensland and Western Australia went for 3'6". A very sparse national government standard gauge system has very slowly connected just the various capitals, but this has always hamstrung long distance service there, both passengers and freight.

 

[John Webb]

My guess would be they're most likely to have belt or cable drive to winches mounted in the ship rigging, but there doesn't appear to be any belt or cables - or a drive wheel. Nor can you see any connected steam pipe to a steam winch.

The coloured hand-drawn picture in post #6 seems to have a wire or rope running diagonally across from near one of the boilers upwards to the rigging of a ship on the right. I think it likely they might have a steam winch mounted next to a boiler and simply run one of the ship's ropes across to it? More of a capstan winch than a cable drum, perhaps?
It seems by the time it was entirely steamships as in the upper photo of the same post that these boilers had disappeared.