| 1919 Dalby |
| Data still required about this railway ambulance. |
| About this Railway Ambulance |
| Basic data |
| Name | 1919 Dalby | Power | Indian 7-9hp |
| 2-2wPMR | |
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| Gauge | 3ft 6in | na | |
| Builder | na | ||
| Year | 1919 | # in class | 3 * |
| * 2 built at Ipswich (Dalby & Mt Mulligan) |
| 1 built at Auster Engineering |
| All essentially the same class of Railway Ambulance. |
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| In Service |
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| In service summary by J.W. Knowles 1990 |
| The first Dalby rail motor ambulance was built at Ipswich workshops. It was 8ft 6in long, 7ft 2.5ins high, 5ft 1.5ins wide, powered by an underfloor 7 to 9 hp (5.2 to 6.7 kw) Indian motor cycle engine. The front was enclosed and had glass windows, but the roof and sides were canvas. |
| There were 4 20in diameter wheels, and the car weighted 11cwt 1qr (582.5kg). It was delivered to Dalby in a wagon, and made its trial trip on the Bell branch on 13th September 1919. In June 1919the local QATB had built a shed at the Condamine Street level crossing, with rails at right angles to the adjacent Tara branch and main Western Line. The car carried a portable turntable which was placed on the rails outside the shed to "rail" the car, and at its destination to turn it. A portable telephone was carried, but this was of no use on the Bell and Jandowae branches, which then had only telegraph. With its iron wheels and motor cycle engine, the car was noisy, a characteristic of most of the cars (railway ambulances). |
| The turntable could be dismantled and was carried in a container in the frame. It comprised two rails each of 14lbs to the yard, with one foot taper at one end, and a vertical curve equal to the wheel radius at the other, 7ft 6 in long overall, just sufficient for the wheelbase. These rails were kept apart by three corss pieces, whcih were slipped on to the bottom flange of the rails and a more substanital inverted tee piece for the centre, which had a bearing on which the turntable turned. There was a similar tee piece which fitted across the running rails, with a pin in the centre on which the turntable revolved. There were thus six pieces weighing in all approx 200 lbs. Similar turntables were supplied for several other cars. |
| The car was immmediately put to work in the 1919 influenze epidemic. In 1923, it ran 5750 miles (9254km) and in the three follow years 450, 592 and 703 (724km, 953km, 1131km). It is reputed locally to have run 60,000 miles (96558km) before it was withdrawn in 1926, but such a high figure seems unlikely; 10000 (16093km) is more likely. Its fate is unknown. |
| In 1924, The Dalby QATB investigated having a car convertible from a road to rail by a change of tyres, but eventually settled for anther rail specific vehicle. A 10hp (7.46kw) Citroen 11-4 truck with chain drive was converted to rail by the Central Motor Garage, Toowoomba. (see 1926 Dalby) |
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| About the location(s) |
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| About the railway line (extracts used from Triumph of Narrow Gauge, J Kerr) |
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| About the people helped |
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| More info ! |
| From the JDK database |