Borenore, I think...

I have been off the air for a fortnight or so thanks to the Internet gremlins... obviously my last post offended them.  

In my absence from the air waves a gentleman on the Ausloco chat group was asking about Borenore in the 1960s and 1970s.  I don't have anything from that era but I do have a story from the 1985 October Long Weekend which started in Orange and ended up in Borenore.  Or at least I think it was Borenore... not sure I have been there since!

I think I have said in other posts that I usually tried to avoid Orange and tried to avoid rail photography on long weekends because nothing ever happened.... and here is an example of that, but this time it paid dividends.  

I sat at the one position in Orange for the next photo for probably 90 minutes.  Although I was happy with the initial shot I wanted one with a typical Alco start-off... smoke and oils going everywhere.Instead I got humming, for a very long time.

Finally dispensing with the idea of chasing the train back towards Sydney, I headed further west.  Deciding to travel along the Scenic Route I gave up on seeing anything before Dubbo,  But lovely little Borenore changed all that.

I had stopped to photograph this lovely yard crane. Obviously the local fettlers were artistic types who didn't mind suspending a length of rail 8 feet in the air for the weekend.

 

No sooner had I taken the photo then I heard what I had yearned for in Orange - an Alco burble. Indeed, I was to be rewarded by two Alcos trundling down the hill to Borenore. Yep, 44210 and 4492 were treading through territory which was clearly  slated for some emergency track repairs.

And they trundled to a stop. I must have been saving film for places west, as I only took one shot. (Hey, if you forgot to buy film before a long weekend there was usually bucklies of replenishing it until everyone went back to work).  Anyway, here is a lovely shot of the 442 nestled against the out-of shed.

And then I was off in the Gemini to Dubbo...

If I had not sat in Orange for what seemed like forever, I would have missed this.

So, if anyone knows who was asking on Ausloco, perhaps you would be so kind as to send him the link? Who knows, maybe he really needs to know that the road side of the out-of shed was a rather sturdy affair?

Ciao for now!

Sunday morning in Bombo

Hopefully every Sunday morning is as lazy as this one, which is allowing me to further test the shortest way to rip old videos and then to upload them on blogs.  

For this test I thought I would pop back to Sunday, 19 January 1991. A quick trip down to Bombo had been taken as we knew the South Coast Daylights were not long for the world.  

And here it is... 42214 sneaking up to the tunnel to Kiama.

Further up the hill that morning was the Senior Train Hunter with his prized VHS camcorder - all 83 pounds of it.  While the photo is OK, the video is a cracker.  It really shows the lousy condition of the bridges and track-work on the South Coast.  Any modeller who laid this sort of alignment would rip it up the next weekend. Turn up the sound folks, and wait for 51 seconds of GM power on display!

Ciao!

The Gloucester trials - Take II

Here is a second test. Same day as my last post and I am still testing how long it takes to upload these damn new fangled video thangs...have dispensed with the upload to Youtube version in lieu of a straight upload here....

So here is 44218 and 44222 creeping into Gloucester on 11 February 1993. Just check out the variety of wagons in this consist!

And if this works properly, you should be able to watch the train roll by.

 

I promise to get back to posting real stories, with photos and videos, real soon!