RAIL SIDING INDUSTRIAL EXTRACTS
c. 1960Black and white print of logs loaded on to no. 3 truck from rail siding.
There are houses in the background.
There is a man and some logs on right side of photo.
In 1942 Millars’ Timber and Trading Pty. Ltd. was given permission to build a sawmill in the vicinity of Toodyay’s first railway station. The company leased a little over one acre from the West Australian Government Railways and had the use of a siding to load railway trucks. Machinery in the mill included a large engine which ran most of the saws and a smaller engine which powered twin saws used to reduce the logs to manageable lengths.
In 1947, mainly due to post-war labour shortages, Millars closed the mill and the equipment was dismantled and shipped elsewhere.
In late 1949 a new company, Industrial Extracts, was established in Toodyay. The core business of this company was the extraction of tannin from timber and a factory was built approx. 4.5 km from here, by the Avon River near Millards Pool. Industrial Extracts also took over and re-instated the sawmill.
Today only the concrete foundations remain of the sawmill. The railway siding was removed after the standard gauge railway was constructed during the mid 1960s. The railway station was also relocated.
Details
Details
Art Photo Engravers, James St., Perth
Industrial Extracts was a subsidiary company of Plaimar, and was formed in about 1935.
The major factory was at Boddingon, Western Australia. Two mills there worked 24 hours a day during WW2 to meet the national demand for tanning extract.
A third tanning mill was built in Toodyay and opened in May 1952. In 1971 the Toodyay factory closed when it became uneconomic.
