THE hand-powered “rail drilling machine” without identification marks was sighted recently at Bendigo’s Sunday Market.
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Reputedly the appliance had seen service on Victoria’s railway network during the early 20th century and was designed to drill holes in the vertical or web section of train tracks.
Two hooks were placed over the rail anchoring the appliance while a railroad worker on each crank handle was required to turn the chain drive.
This was attached lower down to a geared horizontal shaft containing the drill in its bit.
A small-handled screw shaft maintained drill pressure against the rail during the operation.
The appliance has similar features to an early model “Paulus” machine advertised in a 1907 American catalogue of railway gear. The catalogue claimed that the appliance had been around for a few years and was replacing a ratchet method of drilling holes.
Up until the 1940s Victorian state railroad workers are thought to have still regularly used such hand-cranked appliances.
Lengths of rail track sections were once pre-drilled and bolted together in the field using joint connections or fish-plates that matched the holes.
Before the introduction of modern welded rail track, the distinctive “clickity-clack” sound associated with train travel was created while passing over joins where two rails butted together.
If an odd length of rail was cut for repairs or a new rail required, fitting holes were drilled with the hand-cranked machines before motor-driven drills made them redundant.
The novelty of the Sunday Market machine last used some 70 or 80 years ago caused numerous shoppers to be “stopped in their tracks”.
fenselau@bigpond.com