Automatic Totalisators Machine Shop probably Chalmers St. factory

The machine drive, as with the previous machine shop images is via belts driven by pulleys in the ceiling. The system of providing drive power via shafts and pulleys in the ceiling is probably a leftover from the steam engine era. After the steam era the ceiling system continued with electric motors driving the shafts. There is an interesting item near the most prominent machine in the room, to the right and rearward of the man in the foreground with the light coloured shirt, being operated by the second most prominent person in the room in a dark shirt. To the left of the upper part of the vertical cylindrical section of the prominent machine, is a lever dangling down from the ceiling with a hand-grip at the bottom end of it. This lever is pivoted about two thirds of the way up it, at a bracket attached to a lower roof beam and extends further up to a higher beam, where it is connected to a set of linked levers. This set of levers controls the machinery in the roof that contains the drive pulley and belt that comes down to a drive pulley on the prominent cylindrical machine originally mentioned. Presumably this lever either totally disengages the drive power from this machine or is a means of speed control for the machine or both.

The ladders previously mentioned, appear here yet again, probably related to the need to attend to the drive pulleys on the ceiling.

This is the last of the photographs that are annotated with "N.B". Presumably this does not refer to Nota Bene, possibly someone's initials or a place. Whoever, wherever or whatever N.B is, it seems to group these photos together, probably chronologically. As previously speculated, it might stand for New Building if this photo was taken shortly after the move from Alice Street Newtown to Chalmers Street in the Sydney CBD in 1933/34. The images in this and the previous three images in the photo gallery including the images of the carpenter's shop and the blacksmith's shop are probably in the same building.

Further to the thought that the four photographs are in the same building, I think that this image shows the same room as seen in the previous image in the Photo Gallery with a very narrow band of overlap. In the previous image page I described similarities between that image and this one. I indicated that according to the 1936 rate book records this Automatic Totalisators Ltd's factory at Chalmers Street, had one floor and three rooms. This means it could have looked a lot different to the six storey factory that this factory ended up as. Having three rooms, if this image and the previous one in the Photo Gallery show the same room then the four images in this group could show the three rooms in question. In this previous page text, I introduced a device seen hanging on the wall in both images. I have not been able to identify what function it or they perform, however I think they are unmistakably the exact same type of device. This is the most compelling evidence, that these two photos were taken in the same building or a partitioned room or even just the same room. I described the device as seen in the previous image of the Photo Gallery, as it is clearer in that page, as follows:

My immediate impression is that this is a phone, but when I zoom in on it in a higher resolution version of the image, it is not that clear and I cannot recognise it as a phone. The thing is there is sufficient detail to see that it is exactly the same type of device as seen in both images. At the top of this device there is something illuminated or reflective or at least a lot brighter than the rest of the device. With a large stretch of the imagination it looks a bit like the digits 05. Below that there are three cylindrical objects mounted horizontally across the board. The first is one of two smaller cylinders mounted about half way down the device occupying about two thirds of the width of the device and its right hand end is flush with the right hand side of the device. The next cylinder below is the largest in diameter and again occupies about two thirds of the width of the device and appears flush with the left hand side of the device. The cylinder below this one is the size of the first and appears flush with the left hand side of the device. There is insufficient detail to determine what they are but the only electrical device that comes to mind when looking at them is a coil. This device as with the one in the other photo has what looks like rigid straight segments of wires attached to it. They strike me as being of a gauge similar to that of a coat hangar. The first wire connected to this device runs vertically upwards from top centre into the ceiling. The other one exits the bottom centre of the device and extends downwards for a short distance. It then turns 90 degrees right joined by what looks like some sort of loop. It extends right past the right hand side of the device and continues by about the same distance as the width of the device, where it turns 90 degrees upwards joined by another loop, it then rises vertically and disappears into the ceiling again. The pair of vertical wires from this device can be clearly seen in the image above, near parallel rising into the ceiling. What this device is I have no idea. The wires mentioned look rigid and not like electrical cable. There are what looks like 3 electrical cables exiting the bottom of the device. If it is not a phone perhaps it is some sort of sensing or control device possibly an alarm.

I had been looking to see if I could recognise any of the machines appearing in both photographs, however I could not find any. It was not until I discovered this mystery device in both images that I examined the possibility that this mystery device is actually one and the very same device. When I looked at this I realised that in this image the mystery device is at the far right hand side of the image and in the previous image it is near the left hand side of the image. This means that if they show the same room the overlap between the two images is very little. I then looked closely in this overlap area and I discovered the machine I had been looking for appearing in both images, although it is only a small part of the left hand side of it in the image above. The left hand end of the machine can be seen in the bottom half of the image above, against the right hand edge and standing on the ground in the bottom right corner of the image. There is a horizontal shaft extending inwards from the right hand edge of the image about a quarter of the way up the image, hidden by the items mounted on it. Next to the right hand edge of the image, mounted on this shaft is a drive pulley and to the left of this is a second drive pulley of reduced diameter. It can be seen from the shiny surface of these pulleys that they do get used. From the complete view of this machine in the previous image in the photo gallery, there are two more drive pulleys to the right of the ones visible in the image above, so I presume when this photo was taken the belt was on one of these additional pulleys. In the previous image in the photo gallery the drive belt is on the right hand pulley against the right hand edge of the image above. To the left of the two pulleys seen in the image above, mounted on the horizontal shaft is part of a large half U shaped support bracket for the horizontal shaft. To the left of the support bracket there is what looks like a flywheel. Below the support bracket, a crank handle like control can be seen extending left from the base of the machine. Below that extending out from the bottom right hand corner of the image above, there is a tap like control at the base of this machine. Additionally an operator's shoulder and head can be seen behind the machine between the flywheel and the right hand edge of the image above. This complete machine can be seen in the previous photo in the photo gallery on the left hand side, complete with the support bracket, flywheel, drive pulleys, crank handle like control and tap like control as well as the operator.

If this is the exact same machine in both photos, they were not taken at the same time. As already mentioned, in the full view of the machine the drive belt descending from the pulley in the roof is located on the second drive pulley on the machine from the left. This would mean it should be visible in the image above but it is not. Also the operator of this machine seems to have a different shirt. Additionally I cannot find any definitive likeness in both images when comparing the machine immediately behind the one described. There is a similarity concerning the machine in the overlap area up against the far wall but even in the higher resolution image it is hard to tell. Finally the far ladder up against the left hand edge of the previous photo does not appear on the right hand side of the image above although there is a shorter ladder leaning up against the far wall to the left of where the other ladder in the previous image was standing.

In conclusion, I think that both the image above and the previous image in the Photo Gallery were taken in the same room given the same heavy machine can be seen in both images as well as the mystery device on the wall. Additionally, the physical location relationship between the left hand side of the large machine and the mystery device on the wall in both images, is the same according to the perspective in both images. I did not immediately recognise this as the same room in both images due to the very narrow band of overlap. I also think that the two photographs were not taken at the same time. If this is the first one storey building at the Chalmers Street factory then N.B well fits the translation New Building. Additionally this could mean that the four images show the three rooms in the original one storey building. This speculation about the four images being in the same building however, immediately raises the question, why is the floor of the woodwork shop wood, when the other three images show the floor surfaces are cement or some similar material? It is funny how postulating often raises more questions than it answers. The woodwork shop image looks much more like one of the upper storeys at the Chalmers street factory after it had multiple storeys. I am not going to pursue this much further as I have a multitude of questions springing up in connection with this premise. I will only mention three of the most glaring ones.

1. Where is all the assembly of Julius Tote TIMs (Ticket Issuing Machines), Adders, Scanners, Display equipment and other ancillary equipment taking place? Perhaps the move to Chalmers Street overlapped the exit from the Alice Street factory and the assembly was still taking place there.
2. If the four images in question show the new factory site building with only three rooms, why is the woodwork shop so prominent? Some of the TIMs had wooden cases and some race club contracts included the construction of new tote houses and, or, benches to accommodate the TIMs. This construction of tote houses and TIM benches however, was more the domain of George Julius' other company Julius Poole & Gibson, which was an engineering consulting company.
3. I have previously mentioned that these two images of a machine room gives me the impression that much more heavier engineering is taking place than seen in previous and later images of Automatic Totalisators Limited workshops. I do not recognise anything in these photos that seems to be a part of a Julius Totalisator. The image above has a pile of quite heavy looking rods lying on the ground in the bottom left hand corner. On the ground to the right of the man in the foreground there is a pile of quite heavy looking brackets and pulleys. In the previous image in the Photo Gallery, below the bottom right hand corner of the right hand window there is something that looks like a rotor from a large generator or motor which must be four plus feet in diameter! Is this a Julius Poole & Gibson venture or Automatic Totalisators Limited munitions era manufacture? I don't think it is the latter as I know the Chalmers Street factory was already six storeys high in 1939 when WWII broke out and the windows were blocked up due to the blackout requirements. I have speculated more about what is being manufactured in the image above and the prior one in the photo gallery, in that prior photo gallery page in the paragraph near the end starting with the text One last comment regarding what work is being done in the machine shop.

Neville Mitchell, a long serving Automatic Totalisators manager, made the following observation of the belt drive system seen with the machines in this and the previous image of the Photo Gallery: The noise level was high with so much equipment rotating. The 100 mm wide leather drive belts flapped about making their contribution to the general noise level, they were all flat leather with overlapping joints that added to the shop noise.