Picton - Part III

OK, charming comments like those from Linton never fail to elicit a positive response.  This post is a just a shorty, to take me up to 1994 which was quite a watershed year for  loco power in NSW.  

The following photo comes from at least five years before then (and possibly earlier). I may have posted it previously but its such a great caricature of southern NSW goods workings in the 1970s, with 42102, 4205 and 48148 heading south with an eclectic range of goods wagons.

I have always loved this next shot too - taken in those days when it was okay to swing off the end of an FO carriage. Here 3137 is about to pass 42211 in October 1980. Managed to ruin some guy's photo of the 30 tank too - oops, sorry!

The short south in the early 1980s was 422 territory.  Taken off the road bridge in 1980, the class leader works an up Southern Highlands Express.

 
And the next shot is from nearly the same location.  It provides a salutary lesson about the lamp posts of Picton, which jump out and move around randomly! I fell victim to one such lamp post in 1983 when trying to photograph 42209 on an up goods.

To avoid the roaming lamp posts, on a Sunday afternoon late in April 1984 I moved over to the western side to photograph an RTM shuttle - only to have triple 80s (including 8043 and 8008) obscure the train.  Thirty odd years later, I am not too sad that I missed the steam train.

 
Finally, its always god to finish with a gaggle of Alcos... this time it is 4887, 4805, 4807 and 4845 on a Tahmoor Colliery coal train at Picton on 14 June 1992. Wrong road too, so it is about to be stowed.

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.


 

Weird stuff from Wollongong

Time to return to North Wollongong and this time a look at freights - or goods trains for us oldies. 

I am going to start and end with the ordinary - what the Coast was known for - 48s.  In the middle its time to take a look at a few out of the ordinary consists. As usual, the quality of some of the slides is less than desirable but the content is too compelling to pass over.

So, starting with the usual... triple 48s on a steelie from the late 1960s. 4881 led 4862 and another on what would have been a very slow trip to Waterfall.

A faster trip was more likely to be had behind a flying 48120 on the afternoon milko, off to Darling Harbour during the 1970s.

Its time to delve into the unusual, starting with 4540 heading a diverted interstate freight - again from the 1970s.

The Illawarra was Alco heaven in the 60s and 70s.  Trialling of locos undergoing overhaul at Delec brought strangers, like this immaculate 4206 in the early 1960s. The K wagon is a nice touch and dates the photo to an earlier period.

Next is a hurredily shot 4511.  Don't really blame the photographer for this one.  After watching 48s trawl up and down the line for months a growlier Alco engine may have gone unnoticed until the last moment.

Thankfully the photographer was more alert on this occasion.  Yet another Alco engine but this time it was a Canadian import. 

Time to complete the first generation Alco collection. This time 4303 and 4485 sandwich 42103 on a down goods.

And just when it couldn't get any weirder, it did. Through the gloom you may be able to see a WAGR L class trialling on an up goods around 1967.  Of course, 40 years and several liveries later, this loco probably plied the same rails, routinely.

Enough - time to return to the normal.  In 1993 4807, 4829 and 4821 head south on a ballast.  Maybe not the finest way to end, but 48s were always going to need to be the first and the last word in such a blog post.

Ciao!

Salute to the last Nanny

I have had two very nice days so far this June long weekend in Sydney, each capped off with a jaunt from Sydney Terminal to Clyde and return, courtesy of the NSWGR's last remaining nanny, 3526.  

Like any 95 year-old it struggled a little with its footing in the rain today, needing assistance from a more junior colleague from the 36 class stables. However on both days its performed sterling service. Here's a shot from yesterday, when the weather was slightly better.

When 3526 was a much younger locomotive, it trod the rails of the north of the state.  So it was only really 1967, when it was withdrawn from service to operate on tours for the Rail Transport Museum (RTM), that 3526 came into view of the family's cameras.

Probably the earliest photograph we have of this locomotive was shortly after its allocation to the RTM, when it worked a tour to the NSW southern highlands.  Here it stands, taking a drink at Picton in 1967.

Some months later, 3526 scored a 'heritage' style livery, returning to a royal blue hue reminiscent of its 1930s Caves Express days.  It was in this livery one rainy Sunday in Wollongong.

The next time it made an appearance on the South Coast was to collect 4203 as a consort before climbing the Ilawarra escarpment on its way to Joppa Junction.

There were to be a couple of years interregnum before 3526 made it into the family slide box once more.  But this time was special, because we chased a train using a train.  Having missed out on tickets for the RTM's tour to Newcastle on 4 April 1970, the family followed the nanny to that city by regular train.  

I don't remember much about the trip to Newcastle, but we were obviously in Sydney to see the loco head north in its newer royal blue livery (with thinner lining).

And we were in Newcastle to see the nanny set off for its return trip.

While this was all very good and nice, the one thing I remember as a very impressionable 6 year old, was the very, very fast trip on the following passenger train - at least from Newcastle to Gosford.  It was hauled by a 40 class - I think 4017 from family folk lore - and it was the fastest trip I ever got on a train in NSW until an XPT ride in the mid-1980s.  This 40 class left nothing in the tank.  

Four decades later, it is still one of the most exhilarating rides I have ever experienced.  And it was all done in a clapped out Alco hauling a 10 car train into the fading sunset.  And thankfully, the Senior Train Hunter was game enough to stick his head out the window.

But back to 3526.  Its next appearance was a non-appearance.  It was scheduled to haul a tour train to the South Coast on 11 January 1971.  When a diesel arrived with the train, the passengers brought a story of a loco failure at Waterfall.  The Senior Train Hunter set off in the Cortina to capture the loco in its disgrace.

Eleven months later there were happier times.  In front of a crowded Farmborough Heights, 42103 pilots 3526 up the hill.

Its rather nice to reflect that nearly 40 years later, both are still plying NSW's rails.  While both locos have made it, there was a very long time when 3526 didn't look like a museum piece.  

In 1975 it steamed out to Thirlmere and then stopped - until its return service in 2004.  Since then 3526 has been at the centre of most steam-related events in NSW.

In 2006 it ran shuttles in commemoration of the centenary of Sydney Terminal.

In April 2009 3526 ran shuttles as part of the Maitland Steam Festival.

As part of its current role to provide short distance passenger services, 3526 gets to run a fair bit backwards (tender first, that is).  In fact, its probably done more miles in reverse since 2004 than it did in 50 years of NSWGR service.  In honour of this, here's a photograph of 3526 setting off to Newcastle from its home base in the 2011 Maitland Steam Festival.

 

So that brings me full circle - to yesterday.  Here's a half-hearted attempt at an art-shot.  It is a reflection of 3526 in the window of a glass-fronted building near Burwood, as the loco trails 3642 out to Clyde.

Its a great shame that another member of the 35 class was not saved from the scrapper's torch, as the only thing better than one nanny is two!

 

42s

A month ago or so I covered the 421 class locomotives operated by the venerable NSW Government Railways and its successors.  Now it is time for a roll call of that class’s closest relatives – the 42 class. 

Most readers will rejoice here – not because they are particular fans of the 42 class (though there are many of those misguided souls).  No, the rejoicing will come from the knowledge that as there are only six members of the 42 class so this author cannot possibly prattle on for too long?

And sadly, this will be a briefer contribution it should otherwise be as I seemed to have missed ever photographing 4202 during its 24 years of service life.  So, lets get into a quick review of 83.3 per cent of the NSW Department of Railways’ 42 class locomotives.

Lets get started with the class leader, 4201. While I actually seem to have accumulated a fair few shots of this unit, and not all of them blurred, I have chosen a fairly recent snap.  

A reason for this selection? Well, by my calculations this unit is now serving its 30^th year in the preservation scene after its withdrawal in February 1983, after serving only 28 years in revenue action.  

During this last three decades it has carried a green livery of various hues, first shouldered in 1980 in recognition of the 125^th commemoration of the NSW railways.  On an autumnal March day in 2007 4201 was captured rolling through the very pleasant bayside village of Koolewong.

And now… the space where 4202 should be...  Sorry about this...  Normal transmission will resume in the next paragraph.

Like its class-mate 4204, 4203 got to spend a number of years at Cowra.  Sadly for 03 it spent its last years in a bizarre livery adjacent to a local caravan park.  There wasn’t a real lot of it worth saving after a while, and now its gone to GM heaven (except its nose, which is apparently at Emu Plains).  Here’s a shot of lonesome 03 in August 1996.

Now, onto happier times.  4204 lives on, and is a fine specimen these days.  Its present livery captures that essence of maroon which isn’t evident in later NSWGR diesel-electrics’ liveries.

In 2010 4204 spent time at Eveleigh, where the following shot was captured.  Now, I would normally wince at poles growing out of the centre of a loco, but this pole has a sign atop it which states ‘no parking beyond this point’, which apparently doesn’t apply to 42 class drivers.

Because I am of a particular vintage, my major recollections of 42 class locomotives are on the south and in the shafts.  By the former I mean somewhere between Sydney and Goulburn, and by the latter I mean not being the lead locomotive in a multiple unit combination.  The following photograph isn’t the finest quality but it does sum it all up – 4205 being led by 42102 and being pushed by a little Alco battler, 48148.

This photograph just screams the dying embers of a quiet Sunday afternoon at me – because it was. About a minute after taking this snap, I knew that the good burghers of Picton had their afternoon solace severely disrupted by the two lead units.

And now, for the wackiest of them all.  Not the loco so much, but the combination of loco and location.  In the early 1970s both the NSW Rail Transport Museum and the NSW Division of the Australian Rail Historical Society ran ‘Mystery Tours’, usually around 1 April.  On one such tour, in a moment of inspired madness, someone let someone else drive 4206 around the Sydney underground.

To whoever dreamt this up, sincerely thank you.  To whoever let it happen, thank you, too.  And thanks Dad for getting out of the train whilst it was still moving (I recall it was not permitted to stop) to photograph this event and then jump back on.  And Mum, thanks for not letting me go with Dad on this once in a lifetime event - I’ll be in therapy for years for that exercise of parental control.  Anyway, back to the photograph…

 

 So, that's another class down... not looking forward to the 48ers.

 

High summer in Bundanoon

As its mid-January, there’s still time for a couple more January family holiday stories.   At least issuing these stories encourages a few family members to log on to see how they are being committed to posterity.  

 It also gives me a chance to remember what summers used to be like... caravans so small the rest of the family had to stand outside if one wanted to get changed, Toranas so hot you couldn’t sit on the back seat in your stubbies and, well, you know the rest.

About 31 years ago one of my family members decided we should go on a holiday in January, to the airless Bundanoon.  That summer was one of those summers.  For the most part it was too hot to photograph trains during day.  It was even too hot in the evening to walk down to the station to have a chat to the signalman in his box to see what was coming. Anyway, here’s a small selection of what we saw those few days...

One of the loveliest combinations on the main south at that time was an Alco double-header.  When we scored 4405 and 4516 on a goods it was never going to get better.

This next photograph has been retouched slightly, in an attempt to lighten some detail on the lead unit hauling an Inter-Capital Daylight Express service to the southern border.  While the second unit, a 42 class, is clearly visible, unfortunately the 442 leading the train remains persistently dark.  This shade is not entirely the fault of the photographer – 442s seemed to be regularly doused in coal dust or some such blackening agent in those days!

OK, so there was one loco combination possibly better than double Alcos – and that was double GMs.  So when 42109 and a 422 trundled through one morning on an up limestone, it was very pleasant indeed.

I said earlier that the evenings were more bearable for humans than daytime, which probably explains why I can proffer a few more examples of rail workings at this time of the day.  First up is 44237 on a down wheat train.

Then it was time for a number of the ‘name trains’ – the expresses working the south of the State.  From the north 4461 arrived on a down Southern Highlands Express.

We also usually hung around for the Riverina Express.  On this day it hadn’t succumbed to the heat and was heading to Sydney just as it was starting to get really dark.

Finally, here’s a train that ran in the dark through Bundanoon for probably ten months of the year.  It was the all-stations sweeper from Goulburn.  The benefit of photography in high summer is that even after the sun had gone, one could still snap 44223 humming whilst passengers embarked and alighted.

All in all, a terrific holiday!