The innocence & incompetence of youth

In 1978 I was an accomplished photographer, or so I thought. I was also a teenager and so I couldn't be told anything. Or maybe I just didn't understand the complexities offset viewfinders... anyway, that situation explains the following shots.

We had been advised that the rolling stock for the workers trains was to be 'upgraded', which we took to mean that the pre-WWII carriages were to be withdrawn. We had managed to basically get no photos of their predecessors (the FO sets) prior to their withdrawal earlier that decade so we weren't going to be caught out again. This time we grabbed the trusty Agfa instamatic and headed down to North Wollongong station one sunny afternoon.

Norff Gong (as pronounced by those in the know) is best for up trains in the afternoon, and I think I may have already posted this first one of 4825 previously. It hints at what is to come - as the loco just squeezes into the left of the frame (buffers don't count).

Down trains were a bit tricky as they would burst out from under the road bridge adjacent to the Mount Pleasant Signal Box at full speed, and really only hit their anchors on the final approach to the platform. We weren't so hung up about SPADs in the 70s. This meant a bit of a scramble out of the Datsun 180B if you weren't paying attention.  But one of us was paying attention when 4870 cruised into town.

As film was expensive, this was the last of the down trains photographed that afternoon. We also seemed reluctant to photograph anything other than 48s on workers trains - goodness knows what pearls we let slip by.

Anyway, back to offset viewfinders.  The following shots aren's entirely attributable to Agfa's design department. I had been warned, but I had also been told to get close in on the train as we wanted shots of the carriages. Well, as 4892, 4856 and 4828 worked their trains though, I snapped away... 90% of a train is still a train?  Here they are for posterity.

So, you can bet there was a bit of an inquest when this roll of film came back from the developers. I still wince when I see them, 40 years later.

And if it was bad enough, we did hang around for one last shot.  We were hoping for five railmotors headed to Waterfall.  Instead we got three - or rather, 2.9.

Thanks for hanging around, too.  Will return with some of the Senor Train Hunter's blurred shots in my next post, as we work hard to maintain low publishing standards.

Cheers,
Don