Taree January 1980

Previous posts have described the agony of family caravan holidays taken in the hottest month of the year.  Forty years ago, after many supplications, the Elders agreed not to head to White Cliffs in western NSW in January, but up the NSW north coast.  Of course it was a great holiday, with tons of trains and many great photographs.  Unfortunately, we discovered a month later that the camera had been misfiring so the following is all that remains of that trip (plus the memories of 44s everywhere). So, enjoy a record of the start of the holiday - a couple of days and nights at Taree.

Lets start just out of Taree, at Wingham. Its one of my favourite shots because it sums up the time.  Even the pole leaning admirer (Dad) of 4428 in the middle of a warm January day was dressed for the times, terry-towelling hat and thongs.

Taree loco was explored, also around the middle of the day.  It took a bit of looking, but 4520 was found lurking.  More accessible was 4805 and 44207.

The whole loco depot reeked of the steam era.  The allusion was assisted by the fuel tanks, late of 5707.

The real action happened around this time of day too, with the cross of the two (up and down) North Coast Daylight Expresses.  With some nimble footwork, it was usually possible to catch the locos doing the cross, then catch one of them sidling up to the tail of the other's train.

The following day we used up the remainder of the roll of film on another superannuated practice - a human hot box detector.

Happy with these shots, we loaded the next roll of film into the camera and headed north.  And that is where the troubles started. Oh well, as I said memories....

Happy New Year!
Don