Saturday on the South

I am overjoyed.  I finally found a scrap of paper amongst my many other scraps of paper which explains a series of photos I have been hanging onto for years - 28 years to be precise.

On Saturday, 11 March 1987, we headed off early to Douglas Park on the main south line - it lies between Campbelltown and Picton. We just pulled up on the side of the freeway, as the line parallels the road for about five kilometres.  In those days one could just pull off the freeway for a couple of hours without getting the attention of the authorities.

The special part about these photos is that I didn't for once use a telephoto lens so the photos aren't a series of trains looking like sliced loaves of bread.  What we got that morning was just the then usual parade of local, intrastate and interstate services, stretched out against the background. 

When I scanned these shots in the late 1990s pixels were at a premium, so I scanned the section of the print with the train on it.  This produced a rather elongated and small scan.  I apologise if the photo is too hard to see on this blog - you should be able to just click on the photo to load a hopefully larger version if necessary.

Anyway, enough prose. Instead of putting a rose-coloured commentary to that morning, I am just going to reproduce the notes I took that day along with the photos (apart from the bracketed comments).  

 

7:15am       44 and five cars up service (No photo of this one - dunno what happened here!)

7:20am       G518 up containers (looks like this was the last photo on the reel from the discoloration on the right hand side of the print)

7:25am       8156/G up containers (couldn't resist a close up)

7:47am       Double 81s – up Sydney Express (this is worth snaps of each end of the train)

8:16am       4468 up passenger ex Picton (another close up)

8:26am       Double 81s and 38 wheaties (another bloody close up)

8:35am       Down 7 car DEB set on the Canberra Monaro

8:45am       42201 Down Intercapital Daylight Express (five cars and Spirit dining car)

 

8:50am       44/4481 up wheaty (worth two shots for the close up of the first 44)

9:35am       42204 Two FGs, BN and MFH on a Goulburn passenger

9:45am       42208 in reverse Indian Red on a five car interurban set

10:25am     Up Canberra XPT

And that was it - 12 trains in 3 hours; a typical Saturday morning 28 years ago.

Ciao for now!

Don