Looking into Inquests

 A great online zoom session today as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival - Gideon Haig: The literature of Inquests (sub-titled 'The wife's gone, the kids are dead')

Author and journalist Gideon Haigh described the history, mystery and literature of inquests, and why they are sometimes more powerful than fiction, and why they can reveal as much about the way a person lived as how they died.

Gideon Haigh has contributed to more than 100 newspapers and magazines, and published more than 40 books. He has won Premier’s Literary Awards in three states, two Waverley Library Prizes and a Ned Kelly Award for True Crime. 

Gideon related facts, and photos, from a number of inquests that had resulted from murders, suicides and accidents, and of particular local interest one was from the bus crash in Horsham. In February 1951 a railway locomotive struck a tour bus on the Dimboola Road level-crossing.

 

There was newspaper coverage of the crash nationally (you can check them out on Trove) and if you can find a copy there was also a commemorative page in the 'Wimmera Mail Times' of June 20, 2007.

The level crossing no longer exists, as the Carpolac rail-line to Natimuk closed in 1986, but you can still see the rail corridor alongside the Horsham College oval. There is a monument to the event next to the footpath at the site.

Back to Gideon's talk, he gave a brief explanation, from the inquest files, of how the crash occurred, along with some of the photographs of the tour bus from the file. 

'The Literature of Inquests' was not morbid, but engrossing and a real insight into the role inquests play in life and death and in history. Here is a link to the session and a warning - as mentioned, it does include photographs from inquests, that some may find disturbing.

Still with inquests, PROV have also published the article 'Untimely Ends' on place, kin and culture in coronial inquests. 

From Dimb to Basalt Knob

A retired railway carriage from Dimboola has ended up in the mountains of the Victorian High Country.

The T 101 icewagon railway carriage hut aka Basalt Knob Hut, was built in 1894 at the Pinder & Kelly Newport workshops for the Victorian Railways and de-registered in 1978. In the early 1980s a Dargo timber mill purchased the rolling stock from the Dimboola line for forestry workers accommodation and trucked them to Dargo. 
The carriage was in a Dargo mill when it was bought by Ken Scott from David Coates, who sold it to David Eddy from Deeandal & Sons logging company. 

A logging road was constructed, and a loggers' camp erected at Basalt Knob in 1982. The T 101 icewagon was carted it up to its location up above Talbotville near Blue Rag. When the logging finished all the other carriages forming the logging camp were removed by the mill, but they never got around to removing the T 101 carriage, so T 101 now ‘The Basalt Knob Hut’ is still there offering emergency shelter in the Victorian High Country, at Basalt Knob near the junction of Brewery Creek Track & Ritchie Rd which can be accessed via the Dargo High Plains Rd.

Story and photos from the Victorian High Country Huts Association Facebook page. 

 Hauled by steam diesel powered locomotives, the ‘T’ insulated ice van carriages had an ice bunker running along the middle of the ceiling that was filled with ice from hatches in the roof. Used to transport refrigerated meat carcasses or other goods that required a cool temperature, their walls were between 4 & 6 inches thick for insulation. The vertical channel at the end was a drain for the ice bunker. All T's in this number group had lever type handbrakes. This series of T vans had a 12 ton capacity. A relic from a bygone age they lasted to the late 70's in "refrigerated" service. (from Victorian Railways Net)

An update: a photo of T 101 while still on the rails in 1978, possibly in Dimboola, from rail-fan Geoff Winkler who took photos in the Wimmera in the 70s.

A further update: unfortunately T 101/Basalt Knob Hut was lost in the January 2020 bushfires.

Photo: Brendan Brooker, from VHCHA Facebook page