Grafton, Spring 1976

Earlier this year I acknowledged Phil Clarke's passing. Since then I have been fortunate in receiving some of Phil's photographs, including this neat little set of South Grafton in September 1976. True to the times, he shot in black and white using a trusty instamatic so please do not adjust your screens. Here is a nice location shot of the depot.

Phil then managed these three shots of 4303 being prepared for a working southwards, almost certainly to Broadmeadow.

And he wasn't averse to snapping the newer locos - like the yard shunter, 7318.  44204 is the mainliner in the background.

More from me, and Phil, over the coming months.

Cheers,
Don

Port Kembla's railway crematorium

Its been a while.  Reasons for the quiet include blowing up this computer, but normal service is resuming.  I figured I would mark the return of the computer to life with a collection of photos of carriages and wagons about to make their final trip.

Out the back of Port Kembla loco there was (and probably still is) an area which could only be described as the railway equivalent of purgatory. Its where you got shunted until someone decided whether you had further revenue service in you, or a trip to the scrapper's torch.  Quiet a few locos ended up in this area too, but most managed to survive.

In the mid-1980s all sorts of stuff arrived, sat around, got stripped of useful parts and then usually burned. They were simpler times.  The metal went off to the local furnaces. And life carried on, albeit under a cloud of air pollution.  

And so it was for all sorts of rolling stock, much having little or no connection with the Illawarra. Like this little lonely 4 wheel hopper. It got to spend a fair period literally at the end of the line.

I am unsure whether unit stock trains ever ran on the South Coast - certainly the odd BCW was shunted at the stock races at Unanderra and points south of there.  I am almost certain that the next rake of BCW and BSVs did not bring a trainload of happy sheep and cattle down to the Port Kembla seaside for the day. 

BSV 30216 may have been part of this consist. Like how I lined it up, not on the level?

In the 1980s, modest 4 wheel vans were routinely hunted down and sent to Port Kembla to be vanquished from the network. Didn't catch the numbers for these two beasties.

Even vans made it to the killing grounds. NGVA 30950 was caught obstructing a good view of the now-lost stack.

S wagons were regularly in attendance. Less common were KKG horse floats. Someone else will remember the details - this one may have escaped the carnage after this photo was taken. 

As mentioned earlier, carriages made the odd appearance.  I have this next one marked as CR 1373. 

And to finish off I am going to wind forward a decade or so to 1994.  I am not sure what happened to NHRH 50166 after its bingle with 8122 in March 1994, but it made it past the overbridge and into the scrapper's arena for a while.

Back with more happy stuff soon!

Don