Loop lining with a P

These days we are pretty spoilt with 3237 and 3265 appearing regularly or semi-regularly around NSW. Going back 30 years it was another two P classes performing the backbone of work for the NSW rail preservation movement, 3203 and 3214.

3214 was always a bit of a fave of mine because it was painted purple (ok, maroon) and purple was big in the 70s and I was a kid, so purple was cool.

By the 80s it had been returned to black and half banished to the RTM's loop line as the Public Transport Commission attempted to pretend it was a modern administrator.

So it was that you could often find 14 plying the rails between Picton and Buxton. One winter in the 80s I made a few trips over there to capture those workings.

On one such bleak day, 3214 was found at Thirlmere.

Here is your standard 3/4 pose, which always framed a P class on a passenger nicely.

Now, for a sequence. Someone must have tipped the crew as there was quite a show....

Another place to get a series was Picton itself.  Here, on the last trip of the day, 14  works up over the viaduct and under the gantry, with the obligatory glint shot.

I didn't just go to watch, always had at least one ride. On a very rainy day, usually! Here is a rare sunny day in Picton in winter 1983.

And to finish, a couple of snaps showing that Australian film makers didn't mind casting English designed locos in German historical pieces. It did mean the P losing its headlamp.

And the FO passenger cars got some signage. Now my hopeless schoolboy German allowed me to interpret the following sign as you MUST ride on the end platforms. Apparently this wasn't quite right.

Guten tag!