Bound from South Australia

In December 1979 I was part of a group trip to Adelaide.  Unfortunately my fellow travellers had little time for railways so it was only as we returned to NSW that my persuasive arguments won through.. hehe.

The first place I made the travelling troop stop was Olary, on the Barrier Highway in eastern South Australia. This photo pretty much sums up Olary - just add 9 million blowies and open the oven door to get the full ambience.

Even after the Olary stop, I was allowed to choose the caravan park in Broken Hill that night.  I think the one I chose had a small selection of steam locos quietly rusting behind it.  If the photos seem blurred its because I was more worried about the local snakes than framing the perfect portrait (all of my photography in the 1970s was done in thongs). I am not sure of the identity of the loco in the first shot, the middle shot is of Y82 and the final shot is No.99.  Nearly 40 years later, I am not even sure this was Broken Hill!

Once we were back into NSW proper, things got more familiar.  Like at Dubbo.  Here we found the Comet and a couple of 44s lurking in the yard.

Then it was home via Forbes and the railway high-point of the trip - the Lachlan Vintage Village.  As the other tourists participated in convict floggings and generally tried to avoid the 110 degree heat, stupid here was snapping away at the following.

Nothing quite like an undressed tank loco...

And then there was a selection of narrow gauge beasties...

And that was about it!  Can't believe it was 40 years ago - maybe that caravan park was Peterborough?

Until next time, 
Don

From the vault, and probably should stay there.

I figure its about time to post some of our own photos for a change, especially as this is the 200th blog post. So here's a few from the vault from around Sydney in the early 1960s. Each snap has a little story or quirk (at least to my tiny mind), as well as a few deficiencies.

Lets start with a photograph that has at least two quirks. It would seem that the pig is 3670, but with 3646's tender. The second quirk is the white roof on the guardsvan behind 1941.  Its at Redfern around 1960, by the way...

And then there is this one of stored electrics.  I suspect its around Enfield somewhere. The first car is a Bradfield and the next two are run of the mill, but I have never worked out what the last carriage is in this line up.

This third photograph is straightforward - the mystery is that the 41 actually appears to be moving.  A class not known for movement.

Not much in question in the next shot, apart from the identity of the trucks loaded behind the 38.  The identity of the 38 is also in question - at least its not the 3-8-0-1.

And I am going to finish with a photo that probably can't be fixed until the 22nd century.  It highlights the frustrations of manual wind-on cameras in the 1960s.  In all the excitement of finding 3224 hauling a HG and a dead pig probably for scrapping, the film was not advanced for the next shot. 

So, I'll leave you with a big 'thank you' for persevering with me for 200 posts and a promise that many more marginal photographs are still to be published in the next 200 posts.

Cheers,
Don

Port Waratah loco

Wintry Saturday afternoons lend themselves to blogging. And so it is today.

Not really sure what made me think of Port Waratah depot. Anyway I have, so here comes a dozen snaps from that location running from April 1964 through to the end of steam.

From that earlier period, 5251 leads a line of stored steam locos.

This line of stored steam sandwiches a 35 between two standard goods locos. 

Next up, working steam, but a bit quirky.  5195 has an EHO in tow. 

5114 has a shunting tender attached, in the foreground of the coaling tower ramp.

A couple more shots from around this location. First up, 1904 up high.

 Then 3090T going about shunting duties (taken from a heavily degraded slide)

And 3246 getting coaled at this location.

1955 was caught shunting non-air four wheel coal hoppers.

Finally, to the turntable - 5475 is adjacent to the roundhouse.

And to finish off with a couple of garratts between shifts.

Cheers,
Don.

Enfield's survivors

About a year ago I started what has proven to be a very occasional series of posts on Enfield loco depot in the 1960s and 1970s. Given that my last post on this subject was April 2014 it has proven to be very occasional.  Time to redress the absence with a post covering those locos which went though storage at Enfield and didn't end up scrapped.

First shot is one of an oil-burning 5910 being hauled across the turntable by 1033. I have this photo marked as June 1963. At this time 1033 was supposed to be the Eveleigh shunter but may have been doing a cameo.  5910 was converted to coal burning in early 1966 and both are now with the organisation formerly known as the Rail Transport Museum (RTM).

The alleged reason for the RTM's existence was the preservation effort focussed on 5711. Here it is around 1966 at rest. Ignore those youngsters climbing on it with screwdrivers - it was the 60s!

Around 1970 a number of RTM and other preserved locos were located together - 3265, 3801, 3642, 3616, 381 and 3820 at Enfield all make it into this photo.

1919 never looked better than when it was withdrawn.  It had a run on an RTM tour so had been spruced up somewhat.

1076 was another of those locos that probably shouldn't have survived, but did.  Now it rests at Goulburn.

3102T was about to escape storage and head to Canberra by the time this photo was taken around 1975.

Finally, in 1975 3237 had to wait a long time for preservation but it was worth it. 

Ciao for now!
Don

Go bunnies....

Its early Saturday morning, on the start of a long weekend which may see my beloved and most exasperating bunnies win a rugby league premiership for the first time in 43 years. To be honest, its not just the lack of success but the lack of a prospect of success for 41 of those 43 years - in only two years (1989 and 2012) could anyone say that Souths had a fighting chance.
 
Anyway, to give readers a sense of how long this really is, I thought I would trawl the annals for a few things that were happening the last time Souths played in a grand final.

Steam locos were still in regular serice, like 3102T at Dubbo...

Rail tours weren't called 'heritage experiences' or had diesels pushing from the rear, like this one to Kiama by 3028T in February 1971...
 

Or this one to Canberra by 3229 and 5274...

Even when they were added to tour trains it was only because a steamie had failed and diesels were then attached to the front of the train so the cinders from a working steam loco had no chance to lodge in the diesel's air intakes. Here was a nicely turned out 3526 at Wollongong, on its way to Joppa Junction in 1971.
 

And 1971 was a year of decay - most notably at Enfield where the rusting leftovers of 18th century technology awaited a date with an oxy torch, like 1948 and 1903 in the following scene

So I am hoping for a great game tomorrow night. Canterbury will be a formidable and worthy opponent. Win or lose, at least now I won't have to watch replays of the 71 grand final to remember what success means.


 

Rusty town - Enfield in the 60s

As diversification is the spice of life, I thought I would shift focus away from the Illawarra for a post or two, to return to the city.  Actually, I was at Enfield just yesterday and I came across L 282 in the grass.  It’s a little beauty, silently rusting away. 

At least when the oxidisation process is complete the remaining bits can be tossed into the adjacent skip.

The pathos of seeing a 4 wheeler in the dirt reminded me of when Enfield was equal parts wonderment and decay for this writer, when in his formative years.  So prior to diving into a few closer-up shots here’s a few sights from Wentworth Street Enfield in the Sixties.

Starting off on the bank at Enfield in 1963, it was still possible to see a row of stored 57s and 58s. On the adjacent row, 3376, 3094 and a 19 obscure the view. And yes, the photo has deteriorated but it was always really smokey in these parts.

The next two shots are from 1965, looking towards #3 roundhouse.  It is still a working steam loco depot at this time as evidenced by the 60 class in steam in the background.  Two tank engines feature in the foreground of these photographs – in the first it is 3039 and in the next its 3116. Antiquities lurk throughout these shots – a 19 and a 24 sit to the north of 3116 while the 30T in the foreground has towed a 16 class tender.

 

The next photograph is also from the middle of the decade.  In it 5345 and 3334 sit in front of a 30, a 26, a 36 and a 30T. 

The next photograph moves into the second half of the decade.  Coal is still king, although its delivered in 19^th century thimbles which share a heritage to the L wagon mentioned at the top of this post. A plethora of standard goods class tenders sit ready for scrapping, to follow their locos.  Ominously, there are two orphan 38 class tenders around the turntable. Keen-eyed viewers will note two 35 class locos, apparently in working order in this shot.  I suspect they are 3526 on the left, and 3501 in the centre.  Around this time these two locos ran a couple of RTM tours.  The other candidates – 3531 and 3532 – were housed at Broadmeadow.  The splash of colour in this shot is that of 3830.

The next and final shot was taken in the late 1960s or even as late as the early 1970s.  There is no sign of steam; just the relics of the age of steam. Garratts are lined up for scrapping alongside standard goods locos and branchliners. Rust colours the afternoon. Not a bad place to stop this post...

 

South Coast steam tours

This is another in the series of blogs which cover photographs taken just south of North Wollongong station, at the location of my paternal grandparents’ former home.  

After diselisation of the line in April 1964, the steam kept coming… in the form of tours. Apart from its inherent scenic beauty, the proximity of the Illawarra to Sydney (50 miles), its beaches (Austinmer, Wollongong), seaside villages (Kiama), steelworks (Port Kembla) and scope to head up the ‘Mountain’ to Moss Vale and then to loop back to Sydney made it a popular destination for tours.

Most of our family’s collection of steam tour photographs was taken at Wollongong, where the locomotives were watered, or at Famborough Heights where the trains climbed up the escarpment.

Returning to North Wollongong, here’s a broadly representative sample of a wider collection of tours from the 60s, 70s and 80s.  Starting off with the ridiculous, here are two 19 classes, back to back, on a RTM tour on 19 October 1963, headed to Thirroul.

Around the same time, the stately 3810 headed a tour with more comfortable rolling stock northwards.

In an act of painted exuberance, specially-adorned 3830 and 3313 return to Sydney after a tour to the Illawarra on 10 October 1965.

In the opposite direction about ten years later, green classmate 3813 raced through one Sunday morning.

If it wasn’t 38s, it was 32s. Showing Shelleys advertising signs and the coke works’ stacks in the background, on 28 January 1973 3203 steams through North Wollongong on a tour to Kiama. 

Shortly before it was hit with the maroon paint brush, 3214 got a run down the coast on a beach tour. 

30 class locos were regulars on steam tours, but usually arrived in the tender version – 3001T and 3028T being regular visitors in the 1970s. It was not until the late 1980s when 3112 got a dinky little ginty that 30 class tank locos got more familiar with their old stomping grounds.  Here 3112 was captured on 9 April 1998.

Another regular visitor has been the 36 class – with 3616 and 3642 making numerous trips down that way.  Less frequent was 3644 – principally because it met its fate at the scrappers’ torch less than a decade after this photograph was taken.

I am finishing on two immigrants to this country.  The first came and stayed, the other for just a season.  The first came from the Land of the Free – the 59 class were imported from the USA in the early 1950s.  It is fair to say that have spent more time on the Illawarra on tours than in regular service, with 5910 and 5917 being frequent attendees. Here the former heads to Wollongong in 1985 to work a weekend of shuttles to Thirroul.

And finally, a loco which came in 1988 and did not conquer. Its large driving wheels made short work of the flat sections of track between Thirroul and the Gipps Street level crossing at North Wollongong but struggled on the grades elsewhere.  So, it is with some irony that the final photograph is of the Flying Scotsman held at the signal immediately preceding the by-now extinct level crossing, meaning that any momentum it had for the climb up the bank to Wollongong had evaporated.

Still even more to come so please stay tuned!