Molong Calling

This afternoon I was contacted by the Senior Train Hunter, who wanted a view as to whether his HO scale representation of NSWGR's W44 ore train should be tailed by a guardsvan.  Of course it should have a van, I say, thereby averting his public humiliation at the hands of IMRA's stalwarts.

Once home from work I check the validity of my assertion.  Of course, in 25,000 photos you would expect that at least one would exist to justify what I had ventured.  About 6 hours later I am about to admit defeat, but have found a few examples of freights through Molong over the years.

Starting with a black and white shot of Molong in the distance, we have a couple of pigs getting started  to head east in the early 1960s.

I think the next shot was taken a few minutes later, and by that time 3652 and its mate had neared the camera.

The next two shots are the same sequence, but this time its around 1963 and the train is the famed W44 ore train, headed by 6024 and another 60 class.

Around the same year W44 is ready to head to the seaboard once more, this time with 5284 leading a 60 class. A local farmer is busy divesting his flock's product on the far left of the shot.

 

Later in the 60s diesels took over for most of the big freights, especially during the drought of 1965 to 1967.  Most of the time it was branch-liners on duty - 48s and 49s. In the following photograph a 49 leads two 48s with what also appears to be W44.  By this time the silo had received a bit of freshening paint.

There are other shots, but I'll keep those for another time.  Instead I'll finish with a nice snap off the end of the station platform of a sun-drenched 8021 with two sister Alcos in 1982, and then a 30 year fast forward to January 2012 with a fairly shuddery video of NRs 40, 121 and 6 coming through a very rationalised yard with NY3 steel train.

So there you have it - truly 50 years of Molong.