Lakers Siding is a heritage railway station on the

Bellarine Railway The Bellarine Railway, formerly the Bellarine Peninsula Railway, is a volunteer-operated steam-driven tourist railway located in Victoria, Australia. It operates on a 16 km section of a formerly disused branch line on the Bellarine Penin ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It was built privately by the Laker family (from whom the siding's name is derived), and was used as a

shell grit Shell grit is coarsely ground or broken seashells. It is used, among other things, by birds as a source of calcium for egg shell production, and to aid digestion Digestion is the breakdown of large insoluble food molecules into small water-solu ...

plant, opening on 16 November 1959.

Shell grit dispatching

The dispatching of shell grit was Lakers Siding's main function. Approximately 1,000 tonnes of shell grit was produced at the plant there each week. The product was then transported to the Australian Glass Manufacturers' siding in

Spotswood, Victoria Spotswood is an inner-city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Hobsons Bay local government area. Spotswood recorded a population of 2,820 at the . The s ...

, where elevated loading bins and platforms were used to unload it. One train departed each week. The Laker family decided to cease the operation in 1973 and established an engineering business at the site instead. Consequently, the Australian Glass Manufacturers obtained shell grit from

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

instead. Erosion Sand erosion became a major problem at the site during the 1960s, with sand drifts clogging the point work and the signal cables. Special grass was planted in an attempt to stop the sand from moving onto the train tracks. Although the grass helped somewhat, erosion is still evident at the site and continues to be a problem today. Closing and reopening The siding remained available until the Queenscliff Line's closure in 1976. The

Bellarine Peninsula Railway The Bellarine Railway, formerly the Bellarine Peninsula Railway, is a volunteer-operated steam-driven tourist railway located in Victoria, Australia. It operates on a 16 km section of a formerly disused branch line on the Bellarine Penins ...

then took control and reopened the site as a tourist destination in 1979. Maintaining the site In addition to re-gauging the track, the

replaced the staff lock points with plunger locks and provided up and down home signals. A passenger platform was built in 2003 and features a replica of the original

Victorian Railways The Victorian Railways (VR), trading from 1974 as VicRail, was the state-owned operator of most rail transport in the Australian state of Victoria from 1859 to 1983. The first railways in Victoria were private companies, but when these companie ...

portable building and a Marshalltown post office hut replica. In 2007, a project commenced that included building an island platform, facilitating a new locomotive watering facility, and the construction of a 150-metre-long rolling stock shed with four tracks.

External links

Bellarine Railway

References

{{coord missing, Victoria (state) Railway stations in Victoria (state) Bellarine Peninsula