Nannies up North

 Its been so long I had forgotten how to log in to Blogger.  Anyway, I happened upon some of the family's photographs of Nannies - so, not the maternal grandmother but the locomotive class.  So here they are, pretty much unaltered from the 1960s.

I think this one is from the early 1960s, and it is of an unnamed 35 on the Brisbane via Wallan-garra Express. I just love the TRCs up front.

The rest are from around Gosvegas, the centre of the Central Coast, all in the mid to late 1960s. Here is 3524 under the infrastructure which did them in.

And one of the longer lived Nannies, 3509, in the same location.

Now for two of 3532, coupling up and then headed out of town.  We think these are from 1967.

Cheers

Don

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When 3501 came to town.

On 29 August 1968, 3501 made what I think was its last trip to the Illawarra. Here's three shots of this tour.

The first has 01 on the down platform road at Wollongong.  See if you can spot Wally...

Yep, some hoon is photobombing from the end window of what I suspect is a HFL?

The next two shot is from a photostop at the Inner Harbour.  Do this these days and you'll be either run over by quad 82s or arrested for breaching national security.  Or both.

Number 3 shot is the loco shooting back through Mount St Thomas, which suggests the photographer was too slow to the location to get a front-on shot, or it got mucked up somehow.

 Cheers!
Don

A lucky find

Through the generous efforts of my mate, Mad Dog, I have received a collection of photographs from the mid 1950s.  These photographs appear to have been taken by a member of the Australian Railway Historical Society, who could have been a Mr Ian Brady.  

I am probably never going to find out how these photos went out of Mr Brady's possession (or his family's possession) and into mine, but I will be eternally grateful for the diligence and awareness that Mad Dog showed in snaffling these packets for photos at Rozelle Markets a couple of months ago. If any one knows more about Mr Brady or these photos, I would appreciate comments on this post.

Anyway, Mad Dog sent me the following photo a couple of months ago out of the blue.  It shows 3501 at Zig Zag at the head of the 1954 ARHS Annual Outing - as rail tours were called in those days.

Its funny what the brain stores away.  It took about 10 minutes to discover nearly the identical photograph leading the January 1955 ARHS Bulletin, with the credit going to Ian Brady. 

It was only yesterday when I got the full batch of photos (which I will paste here in due course and over on my Flickr page (Don5617) that it we were able to confirm that there shots were from the same person.  

So, I never met you Mr Ian Brady but you were a fine photographer and, as the following and other posts will show, had a sense of getting into the right spot to get something a bit special. I have started scanning a few in low res, as its the scanner most accessible at the moment. At some stage I will re-scan them to the level they deserve.  

So, lets have a look at just a few more from that day - which was 14 November 1954, incidentally. Sneaking a shot from platform 16 at the start of the day caught the sunny side of the loco, along with the crew setting up the headboard.

 I think this next shot is taking water at Lawson. The report in the Bulletin lists this as the location where this occurred. The Bulletin noted that the train did not stop at Valley Heights for an assistant engine which meant the Nanny 'put her back into it' on the climb up the Hill.

Leaning out of the carriage, Mr Brady almost pulls off a ripper of a 58 at the landmark - near Katoomba.

And leaving Katoomba, headed west. Apologies for the wonky scan.

Then at Zig Zag where the tour stopped for a 2 hour picnic.

The loco worked into Lithgow for a spin on the table.

It wasn't all 3501 - 2608 got snapped.

Double standard goods locos worked east with a fast goods.

Then the last shots of the day from the Zig Zag where the train is approaching to collect the 207 happy picnickers.

The Bulletin article finishes with a full half page of thank yous, as outings in those days were run with the full co-operation and grace of the railway administration. I am going to conclude in a similar vein.  Thank you, Mr Ian Brady, for your efforts nearly 63 years ago. And thank you Mad Dog for being on the spot and thinking of your railway nut mate.

Many more great shots to come!

Cheers,
Don

Double headers

A Facebook group that has graciously permitted me to join has been running a theme for December 2016 which involves double-headed steam, or a double header involving a steam loco to be more precise.  It has been a very good month! The better half has commented a couple of times about how much time I seem to be spending on Facebook.

Anyway, I have dug a few up which I am about to post. Thought I would pop them up here too so I can have a bit more of a ramble on about them.  First up is 5395 and 5593 just south of Wollongong on a tour train around 1965. 

It is on the short north that our photo collection seems to have most of the steam era double headers. Here is 3509 and a 36 at Gosford in 1965 - appearing to be refuged to permit a 44 to pass.

The next photo comes from a location a few hundred yards further north.  It is of 3532 and a 60 on what appears to be W44 April 1967.

A third one from the short north - 3654 and a Garratt on Hawkemount around 1969.

Then t the west for the final two shots this year - and both are black & white so please do not adjust your monitors. It is 1965 and 3653 and 3825 are approaching the climb on Tumulla Bank with gusto. 

Further west still, 3652 and another pig are climbing away from Molong.

So folks, that was 2016 in a blog.  I still managed a post a fortnight, even after blowing up a computer and managing to lock myself out of Blogger for a couple of months. Thanks for reading and commenting on my posts throughout the year. I will be back (in 2017)!

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.

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.


 

Epic fail at Waterfall

Time for a whimsical look at Waterfall, to give those IMRA folk something new to model...

There are many definitions of failure, and I have invented a few myself.  Here are a few at Waterfall.

First up, 3526 disgraced itself at Waterfall en route to Wollongong in the early 1970s.  I was pretty young and impressionable at the time, and was deeply affected by an RTM tour train arriving in Wollongong with a diesel at the front end.  But enough about me, Waterfall yard held the Nanny captive for a few days until it was towed back to Enfield.

Here's an epic fail of another dimension. Taken on the night of fires in the Royal National Park (with tragic loss of life) around 1979, it is less a photo about trains and more a photo about life's struggle in Australia.

Back to the rails.... the prosaic Metro coal scored a newly repainted 48119 at Waterfall in 1993 after the original combination of 4842 and 4839 couldn't do the job.

I think the failure in the following photograph will become evident in the next decade. As the Aussie dollar drops back to usual levels and world oil prices creep up again, we may be well be ruing the decision not to invest more heavily in electric freight traction.

Next one is an epic fail on my part - I actually drove to Waterfall in the early 1980s to photograph a V set on its trial.  Then, for the next 30 years, V sets ran through Waterfall about 50 times a day, every day.

Another loco is down... this time its 2005 and GM42 expired when on ARG's Manildra flour train. So it got a visit to the outer reaches of Waterfall's yard.

And finally an epic fail.  A shunting accident in 1995 left a substantially shortened version of a suburban carriage, so what was left was parked on the turntable, as one does.

So, Waterfall seems to be a harsh place. 

Ciao!

Sunday afternoon special

Came across one of my favourite all time photographs earlier this afternoon when looking for something else.  There is a bit of a back story so I'll keep most of this trip for another time but in October 1991 the Senior Train Hunter and I were in the New England, hoping to get as many 44s and 45s as still existed to wander past the lens.

We really did get lucky at Willow Tree one afternoon, when we found 3505, 3515 and 3527 about to commence banking duties.

And this brings me to the moment of one of my favourite photographs - with setting sun and an approaching wheatie with 8106 and 8130 in need of banking. 

 

Enjoy!