Lubecker Steam Dredge on the Koo Wee Rup Swamp

The Lubecker Steam Dredge was the first machine used on the long running project to drain the Koo Wee Rup Swamp. Small scale works, undertaken by individual land owners, had started in 1857 when William Lyall undertook drainage works around his property. In 1875, landowners, including Duncan MacGregor, formed the Koo Wee Rup Swamp Drainage Committee. This Committee employed over 100 men and created a drain that would carry the water from the Cardinia and Toomuc Creeks to Western Port Bay. 

It soon became apparent that drainage works needed to be carried out on a large scale if the Swamp was to be drained thus the Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, William Thwaites, surveyed the Swamp in 1888.  His report recommended the construction of the Main Drain from where the Bunyip River entered the Swamp in the north to Western Port Bay and a number of smaller side drains. A tender was advertised in 1889 and by March 1893 the contractors had constructed the 16 miles of the drain from Western Port Bay to the south of Bunyip.  The Swamp was then considered ready for settlement. All work was carried out manually using axes, shovels, mattocks and wheel barrows. 

  

The Public Works Department had been unhappy with the rate of progress and took over its completion in 1893 and appointed the Engineer, Carlo Catani, to oversee the Swamp drainage works.  Catani was keen to introduce land dredges; however this was not approved because it would reduce the work available for unskilled labour. It wasn’t until 1912 that Catani was given permission to purchase a machine. Carlo Catani spent four months in Europe in 1912 and while he was away investigated various machines and selected the Lubecker steam driven bucket dredge from Germany. It was described as being of the articulated ladder type; it ran on rails and had a 9 man crew. It weighed 80 tons and had a capacity of 80 cubic yards per hour or approximately 200,000 cubic yards per annum when working one shift.  A labourer at the time dug about 8 cubic metres per day. The purchase price was £2,300 pounds, plus £632 duty. The total cost landed, erected with rails, cranes and other equipment came to £4,716.

The dredge in operation, on some official occasion.

State Rivers & Water Supply Commission photographer, State Library of Victoria Image rwg/u873

According to the Lang Lang Guardian the dredge had arrived by June 1913 and was to start work on the Lang Lang River, which was described as a ‘wandering creek.’ This dredging was to prevent flood waters backing up across areas of the Tobin Yallock Swamp lands. The paper also said that the dredge was thought to be the finest in the world and will shift earth at the rate of a penny a yard. A report in the same paper on July 16, 1913 said that 50 chains of rail would be laid for the dredge on a cleared track.  The reporter went onto say that at this time the dredge was currently scattered over the ground, and is an insoluble puzzle to visitors who attempt to construct in their minds a mechanical theory as to how this vast and complicated machine will be put together and how it is going to work.

It was obviously put together and started work, and the Lang Lang Guardian reported that the Engineer, Mr Osborne, had employed a small Tangye engine and secured it to a truck for the hauling of the machinery and goods.

This is the Tangye engine referred to, above, used to haul machinery, goods and in this case important visitors. This photo was obviously taken during an official occasion.

State Rivers & Water Supply Commission photographer, State Library of Victoria Image rwg/u877

 From a report in The Argus on October 13, 1915 we can get an idea of how the Dredge operated - it excavates by means of an endless chain arrangement, wherein each link of the chain consists of a heavy steel shovel head…these scrape away the ‘spoil’ and then they deliver it onto a mechanical conveyer …which dumps the earth onto a regular embankment or if necessary into wagons that cart it away.

Around August 1916 the Dredge had completed its work on the Lang Lang River, having removed 78,000 cubic yards of earth and creating a channel a mile and half long. It was then taken over by the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission and worked on the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp on the Main Drain, Cardinia Creek and the Yallock Outfall Drain.

Lubecker Dredge

State Rivers & Water Supply Commission photographer, State Library of Victoria Image rwg/u855

           

According to a paper presented to the Institution of Engineers by Lewis Ronald East in March 1935, by June 1934 total excavation by the Dredge was 1,332.231 cubic yards. It never worked full time and never at more than at 60 percent of its capacity.  The average cost of excavation was 7.9 pence per cubic yard, but with interest and depreciation the total cost was 9.15 pence per cubic yard, well over the Lang Lang Guardian’s original estimate of one penny per yard.  East also reports that the dredge has now practically completed its useful life.

Lubecker Dredge

State Rivers & Water Supply Commission photographer, State Library of Victoria Image rwg/u871

  

Other machines working on the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp included a steam powered Stiff Leg Dragline, weighing 25 tons, purchased in 1925 for the cost of £2,200.  This had a five man crew and was rail based and a working cost per cubic yard of 7 pence.  In 1929 a 45 ton steam powered Full Swing Dragline was purchased for £3,100. This had a three man crew and a caterpillar undercarriage and a per cubic yard cost of 4.4 pence.  In 1929 the first non-steam powered machine, another Full Swing Dragline was purchased for £3,700. This weighed 26 tons, had a two man crew a caterpillar undercarriage and had a working cost per cubic yard of 2.4 pence.  East said that the economy of caterpillar traction and of crude oil power are obvious.  You can see some photos of other dredges that worked on the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp, here.

Finally, what happened to the Lubecker Dredge? We don’t know but presumably it was cut up for scrap as all that remains are a set of wheels on display at the Swamp Look-out tower on the South Gippsland Highway.

The Lubecker Dredge wheels at the Swamp look-out tower.

You can read more about Carlo Catani in my Carlo Catani blog, here.

A short overview of the drainage of the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp.

I must acknowledge the books  From Swampland to Farmland: a history of the Koo Wee Rup Flood Protection District by David Roberts (Rural Water Commission, 1985)  and the chapter Draining the Swamp in The Good Country: Cranbourne Shire by Niel Gunson (F.W. Cheshire, 1968) in the preparation of this history.  You can read a more detailed history of the drainage of the Koo Wee Rup Swamp, here. 

Drainage works on the Swamp began in the 1850’s on a small scale and in 1875, landowners formed the Koo-Wee-Rup Swamp Drainage Committee. This Committee employed over 100 men and created drains that would carry the water from the Cardinia and Toomuc Creeks to Western Port Bay. You can still see these drains when you travel on Manks Road, between Lea Road and Rices Road – the five bridges you cross span the Cardinia and Toomuc Creek canals (plus a few catch drains) which were dug in the 1870’s. 

It soon became apparent that drainage works needed to be carried out on a large scale if the Swamp was to be drained and landowners protected from floods. The Chief Engineer of the Public Works Department, William Thwaites, surveyed the Swamp in 1888 and his report recommended the construction of the Bunyip Main Drain from where it entered the Swamp in the north to Western Port Bay and a number of smaller side drains as well. A tender was advertised in 1889. Even with strikes, floods and bad weather, by March 1893 the contractors had constructed the 16 miles of the Drain from the Bay to the south of Bunyip and the Public Works Department considered the Swamp was now dry enough for settlement. In spite of this, the Public Works Department was unhappy with the rate of progress and took over its completion in 1893 and appointed the Engineer, Carlo Catani to oversee the work.

Catani implemented the Village Settlement Scheme. Under this Scheme, all workers had to be married, accept a 20 acre block and spend a fortnight working on the drains for wages and a fortnight improving their block and maintaining adjoining drains. The first 103 blocks under this scheme were allocated in April 1893. The villages were at Koo-Wee-Rup, Five Mile, Cora Lynn, Vervale, Iona and Yallock. Many of the settlers were unused to farming and hard physical labour, others were deterred by floods and ironically a drought that caused a bushfire. My great grandfather, James Rouse, a widower, arrived on the Swamp with his nine year old son Joe, in 1903. James, who had been a market gardener in England, was part of a second wave of settlers who were granted land as they had previous farming experience.  By 1904, over 2,000 people including 1,400 children lived on the Swamp. By the 1920s, the area was producing one quarter of Victorian potatoes and was also a major producer of dairy products.

 No amount of drainage works could protect Koo-Wee-Rup from the 1934 flood

The original drainage works were completed in 1897 but later floods saw more drainage work undertaken, including widening of the Main Drain and additional side drains. None of these works protected the Swamp against the Big Flood of  December 1, 1934. The entire Swamp was inundated; water was over six feet deep in the town of Koo-Wee-Rup and over a thousand people were left homeless. Another bad flood hit the Swamp in April 1935 and yet another one in October 1937. A Royal Commission was also established in 1936 and its role was to investigate the operation of the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission regarding its administration of Flood Protection districts, amongst other things. The Royal Commission report was critical of the SRWSC’s operation in the Koo-Wee-Rup Flood Protection District in a number of areas and it ordered that new plans for drainage improvements be established. The subsequent works saw the creation of the Yallock outfall drain and the spillway at Cora Lynn, the aim of which was to take the pressure off the Main Drain in flood times and channel the flood waters directly to Western Port Bay.

Today we look at Swamps as wetlands, worthy of preservation, but we need to look at the drainage of the Swamp in the context of the times. Koo-Wee-Rup was only one of many swamps drained around this time; others include the Carrum Swamp and the Moe Swamp. To the people at the time the drainage works were an example of Victorian engineering skills and turned what was perceived as useless land into productive land and removed a barrier to the development of other areas in Gippsland.