Watch our latest TOMM video, featuring a Ronaldson & Tippett stationary engine along with the original 1926 Austral Engine No. 7086 used for starting. As featured in TOMM #213 Bringing life back to the Rokeby Engine and Pump.

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Now back to more about this video: In the early 1900s, the growing Gippsland township of Warragul in Victoria realised a need for a more adequate supply of fresh water with existing supplies being of limited quality and quantity.

In 1906, engineer Mr Thomas Fowler was appointed to establish a fresh water supply, and he subsequently decided to erect a pumping station on the Tarago River, some 12kms from Warragul, at the small saw milling township of Rokeby. The sawmills have now gone but the town lives on. Pumping commenced in February 1910, using two Hornsby & Sons 37hp gas engines and a complete gas producing plant, driving Robison Bros 5-chamber 10,000gph centrifugal pumps, lifting the water with a 360ft head to a storage basin elevated above the township with a gravity run from there on, ultimately resulting in one of the highest pressures in rural water supplies of 120psi. The Hornsby engines continued service through to 1923 when a 50hp Crompton DC electric motor was introduced and the No. 1 Hornsby was retired. As mains power had not reached the area in the 1920s, the Crompton 50hp DC motor was connected to an electrical supply from a water wheel generation system based some 28kms away on the Tooronga River at Noojee, which was supplied by the Latrobe Power Company. Very little information can be found on the generating plant or its life span with only basic foundations remaining today. To read more about these engines Visit: www.tomm.com.au and look for Issue #213. What a great stationary engine water pump.

Video supplied by: Baw Baw Old Engine & Auto Club

To read more about Stationary Engines, Tractors and Steam visit: www.tomm.net.au