Getting to Dripstone

Just been trawling through  a few photos instead of working, and came upon these long-forgotten ones. I have been trying to repress the memory of this first one for four decades... I stayed with one of my non-train loving cousins instead of following Dad down to Bathurst railway station.  He, and my sister and another cousin, cadged a ride up Raglan Bank in a 47 class banker.  Here is a shot looking back at 4537 and the train.

I got the consolation prize - the next day in the same general vicinity we scored the Indian Pacific with 4485 and a sister 44. Pretty sure I have posted a version of this slide before but, hey, its double Alcos...

The other end of the train was nearly as interesting, and certainly much cleaner than the front end.

Anyway, i had been looking for photos of a little place called Dripstone, which was the station where Arthur Edward Jones had been sent in 1925.  Arthur is one-eighth of the reason why I am here today - he was my paternal great grand-father.  He was the station master at Dripstone between 1925 and 1927.  Fifty years later, both the station building and the station master's house were standing. We only took a solitary shot of each.

The station is now gone, but the house (or a bit of it) lives on in a remodelled dwelling on the same site.  Of course, Arthur is gone too and I am going to leave you with a report of his leaving of Dripstone - from the Wellington Times in April 1927.  Seems he was bit of a 'live wire'.

Cheers,
Don