Torpedo!
This monstrous and rather rusty railway wagon is called a "Torpedo". This is one of those at the Richmond Vale Railway Museum in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. It is very appropriate that it should be here as the giant Newcastle steelworks of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) we're not far down the road within suburban Newcastle. At least they were until the whole lot which formed so much of our primary school social studies and really, national pride closed down in. Torpedos were used to transport molten steel around the steelworks. You can see they have four sets of bogies because of their great weight and are set up, check the mechanisms on the outer ends to turn and tip the steel out into such things as i got moulds. The heat must have been overwhelming. I can't say for sure as I have never been inside a steelworks (given the safety and security issues, not a place easily visited and understandable) but I am pretty sure these type of wagons are still employed at our remaining steelworks in Port Kembla (NSW) and Whyalla (SA).
Torpedo!
This monstrous and rather rusty railway wagon is called a "Torpedo". This is one of those at the Richmond Vale Railway Museum in the Hunter Valley of New South Wales. It is very appropriate that it should be here as the giant Newcastle steelworks of the Broken Hill Proprietary Company (BHP) we're not far down the road within suburban Newcastle. At least they were until the whole lot which formed so much of our primary school social studies and really, national pride closed down in. Torpedos were used to transport molten steel around the steelworks. You can see they have four sets of bogies because of their great weight and are set up, check the mechanisms on the outer ends to turn and tip the steel out into such things as i got moulds. The heat must have been overwhelming. I can't say for sure as I have never been inside a steelworks (given the safety and security issues, not a place easily visited and understandable) but I am pretty sure these type of wagons are still employed at our remaining steelworks in Port Kembla (NSW) and Whyalla (SA).