4. Shelters up working bee Sat 21.2.15

Friends of Gippsland Plains Rail Trail held a working bee on Saturday February 21st at Powerscourt Siding in Maffra. Despite the heat, a lot was achieved. Check out the photoes we’ve added to the Gallery.

In addition to general maintenance works and varous other improvements carried out on the day, an information shelter was erected and this where the Friends group plan to display historic photos relating to Maffra’s thriving sugar beet industry during the early part of last century. At that time sugar beet was deivered by horse and dray from surrounding farms to Powerscourt Siding where it was tipped from the drays into open railway carriages (one of which is displayed at the trail head in Cowwarr) and taken by train for processing at Maffra’s Sugar Beet Factory. The once bustling Powerscourt Siding is now gradually being transformed into a shady rest spot halfway between Maffra and Stratford.