Tuesday, July 13, 2021

The trouble with someone else's history

Here is the penultimate collection of photograph reels I have in my collection, but were taken by Ian Brady way back in 1955.  Several posts from 2014 explain how these arrived in my possession, which I won't cover here for sake of brevity.

The date is 1 August 1955 and it seems that Ian was in the company of others when he visited the Port Kembla area to photograph the industrial locos working that day. As with anything from nearly 66 years ago, the photos are both historic and (sometimes) a bit puzzling.

The first photo is no puzzle - it is 1806 and it is in steam.  Port Kembla was not this loco's last stop - in 1957 it was sold to the Wallarah Coal Company and worked the Catherine Hill Bay railway for a further 6 years.



More of Ian's photos containing little mystery include these three.  First up, PWD 79 sneaking out of the shot... 

Second, PWD 28 - otherwise known as Kembla -  dealing with some troublesome S trucks. 

Thirdly, PWD 75... another diminutive shunting loco showing its elegant heritage.


Now things get murkier, at least if you are relying on my brain cells.  From memory this was one of several electric locos used to shunt the ER&S plant.  Happy to hear otherwise.


And ER&S's steam shunter????


And here is, I think, a Lysaght loco - Alison or Kathleen or somesuch young lady. (Now confirmed as  ER&S 0-6-0ST No.2, Andrew Barclay 2256/1948- thanks Zane (see below)).


And here is the greatest mystery for me.  Initially I had this loco pegged as E18, which now resides at Thirlmere in far better shape.  But it could be the loco once called Bogan. That loco was based at the Port Kembla steelworks between 1939 and 1959, but I have only a very poor comparison photo so am not sure.  Bogan had a huge role in Illawarra railways - hauling the first trains in the region before the South Coast railway was linked to the wider NSW network.  So here it is - guess away!!!!


Happy to field any suggestions!


Cheers

Don