Just when I thought I had everything under control, just when I thought I had payment plans set up that I could manage, just when I thought it was safe to set up a fund for HRT, I have a debt collector attempt to force full payment out of me within 14 days.

I can't afford to pay them the amount they want (£500), so I am unfotunately going to have to ask for help. Please spread this message around and donate if you can. If I don't pay this I could become homeless.

Here's how you can donate if you would like to:
Kofi: https://ko-fi.com/thehelplesscelt
PayPal (preferred): https://www.paypal.me/SamTamplin

I found one of those "sketching starter set" boxes in a draw and decided to make something of it.

Notes -

The WAGR's MSA Garratts made themselves at home on lines in the Darling Ranges east and south of Perth, and the Eastern Railway's First Route (also known in the 20th century as the Mundaring Loop) was no exception. The lift out of Darlington was especially tough, some of the steepest grade on the line combines with successive tight bends- A real test of motive power AND footplate crew.

Research Notes -

MSA class

The Mˢᵃ class is an 0-6-2+2-6-0 articulated Garratt locomotives built entirely in-house at the Midland Workshops for WAGR. The WAGR had already a small fleet of Garratts of the classes M and Mˢ, but these were increasingly showing their age. The results was the Mˢᵃ, the only Garratts at the time license-built in the Southern Hemisphere. All of the WAGRS Garratts were heavily utilised on the lightly-laid,sharp and steep lines through the Darling Ranges East and South of Perth owing to their articulation combined with their low axle-loading and high tractive effort.

Above: MSA Garratt 468 in Builder's Grey for it's official photo. Below:ARHS Vic Div visit, MSA class 499,trestle bridge, Nannup, WN line

Darlington, and the First Eastern Route

After the Railways reached Fremantle, then Guildford, the next obvious connection to make was eastward, to allow for the opening up of the states interior to easier settlement and to support the massive hardwood logging industry in the hills . The route planned left Guildford for Bellevue, then up the Darling Scarp via Greenmount Hill to Darlington,Glen Forrest, Gugeri Siding (Mundaring), Lion Mill (Mount Helena) Ending in Chidlow's Well (though was extended within several years to Northam). The Scarp was at the time one of the steepest lines in the state - an average ruling grade in the area of 2.5-3% for about 15 kilometers - and was expected to carry the bulk of the freight burden of a growing colony.
It became rapidly apparent that the line was not up for the task very quickly, with the onset of the gold-rush in Kalgoorlie and the extra loading the brought, a new line was rapidly devised by The Railway's Engineer-in-chief C.Y. O'Connor that instead ran northward through Swan View and Parkerville to meet the original at Lion Mill - around twice the distance but half the grade- and was opened within a decade of the first.

Above: Darlington Station, derilict, 1960
From that point on, the First Eastern Railway route became a reserve line for the second, whilst still serving the towns along it's length for both passenger and freight. The line remained open throughout the first half of the 20th century with the previously mentioned Garratts making themselves home on the line. However as the WAGR began a program of rationalising it's inventory, owing to it's redundancy the first route was closed in it's entirety in 1955, with the second route closing in 1965 as the dual-gauge Avon Valley route opened.

Above: Devil's Spring Cutting, 2024. For context, Darlington station is about 500-700m away, lower, center-left of image, behind at least 3 curves