Wilton Hill

These days its too overgrown and it would probably trigger a national security emergency, but in 1982 it was technically possible to pull off the highway near Wilton and trot up to the top of a hill overlooking the Main South for a Saturday morning of rail photography.  To give you an idea of where I am talking about, here's a location shot showing the mighty little Suzuki which took us half way up the hill.

 I have these photographs marked as January 1982, but that is just a proximate date.  I do remember it got bloody hot but it was still quite fresh (and quite early) when the first train arrived - the Spirit led by a 442 and a 44.

 

The Spirit was followed closely by 4447 and 44223 on the Southern Aurora - worth two view of this one!

Coal - Tahmoor coal - was king this morning as the following shots show.  First up, 8010 and 4880 head south - bloody telegraph poles!

Then two shots of 8031 and 48146 on an up coal - the second shot just for the white roofed van.

And then 8004 and 4809 on a down coalie.

It was also a morning for the express passenger trains - the 'varnish' as the Americans coin it.  Here's a couple of landscape shots of the Canberra Monaro and then the Inter-Capital Daylight expresses.

I apologise for this next one - I was youthful and always looking for a new angle. This is a DEB set on the Riverina Express run and I decided to shoot it through a set of binoculars - oh well.

More humble passenger consists included these CPHs on the Picton squirt.

Equally prosaic was the Goulburn day train with a 48 up front.

More colourful was 4836 on its sister service.

 
Back to the freighters - here is an up wheatie with a 422/442 combination. I believe them to have been 42202 and 44229. 

I stuffed the approach photo of the up Southern Highlands Express being led by a 421, but here it is going away as 8021 and a 48 approach on a down coal.

Finally, the aforesaid 8021 heads down the hill. And I gt the telegraph poles right on this one!

Sorry for the dark grainy nature of some of these shots.  I had loaded the camera with cheap, slow Kodak film which was suitable for low light photographs.  Who knows why I did - call it youthful enthusiasm.  Will leave you with a degraded shot of my two compatriots that morning - father and Frank B. In the next photograph Frank is the one lining up the money shot of the day.  Father looks like here is wondering when the morning tea will arrive or if the Suzuki will get towed.
 

Cheers,
Don

PS - Cheers to all my friends in Petrograd who regularly tune into this blog.

Don't try this at home

I thought I would toss up a few photos showing health and safety issues from earlier times. Its supposed to be light hearted so please, no comments either for or against what is happening in these photos!

First up, only one bit of soot in the eye from the standard goods' exhaust and its backwards off that tender!

That was 4913 being banked by 5364 on Tumulla Bank in January 1965, by the way.

Next up, look at these two lads taking the shortest possible route in front of 2010.

It was the last train to Camden and it was stationary at the time.

Next up, laying a 30 class down to rest.

Those men inspecting 3137 were railwaymen.  I am not sure that all of the people in the following shot were, and it would seem that not too many were sun-safe either!

The last snap was from New Year's Day 1964 when 4529 ran off the rails at Unanderra.  Nice start to the year for that crew.  Next up, the ordinary, but with the potential for so much to go wrong.

I love how 3 kids appear to be climbing into the cab, all at once.  That was the sort of thing you did in Wollongong in the late 1970s and nothing ever went wrong.

Next up a toast-rack tram at SPER's old site.  These were great fun and the conductors encouraged the kids to hang out.  Also from the 1970s. 

  

 In 1980 the Railways ran a successful celebration of 125 years of service at Central.  I just love the angle that this interested patron takes whilst on 4836's running board.

 Definitely don't try this at home.  How do you test  for hot boxes on express trains? Well, you use the back of your hand...

That was also from 1980 - at Taree as the North Coast Daylight rolled through.

And what could go wrong with slippery soapy water to clean 44234's windscreen???

And to finish up, imagine getting that hair caught in the buffing plate....

Things are certainly safer and maybe just a bit more boring these days.

Seeya!
Don

Chasing 48s

Every author and blogger over 30 years of age will have tales of when they didn't photograph 48 class locos, simply because they were so ubiquitous, only did the mundane jobs and were generally despised for being the loco most responsible for the dieselisation of NSW's branch-lines (read 30T killers).

Well, if you lived in the Illawarra in the 1970s, if you didn't photograph 48s you had lots of leftover film.  And, if you saved up all this film and went on holidays, just about everywhere you went you got to see... 48s.  But not the south coast 48s, so that was OK.

I was thinking about this earlier today when I was talking to the Senior Train Hunter (STH) about fuel tanks on 48s. Yes, life can be that exciting. Anyway, STH was holding forth about the differences in fuel tanks and their relative capacities.  To make this discussion a little more colourful, I thought I would post a couple of snaps of colourful 48s.

The first is from an excellent afternoon spent at North Wollongong station with STH in 1981, as we feared the effects of encroaching electrification and the demise of loco-hauled passenger trains.  

While we were there to see tuscan-liveried locos hauling tuscan-liveried trains (call them brown, maybe, but almost no-one knows what you are talking about when you call them Indian Red).  Then, along came 4836 - all decked out in its novel green livery in honour of the 125th anniversary of NSW Government Railways the previous year.

Yes, the photograph needs a Photoshop bath but when it gets it, I certainly won't be removing the pall of pollution gasped by this little bottler as it accelerates up to 25 mph away from North Wollongong.

The second comes from a decade later, and it features the last of the 165 48 class locos.  

Yes, it is a little over-exposed, but not as much as you would believe.  The Bicentennial livery did not wear well, and this particular day had that blinding white light which encouraged good photographers to put away their cameras. I was deputised by the STH to snap this shot from the door of a carriage as we sped past.  So I decided to add my signature touch - slightly lopping off the extremities of the No. 2 end.

So STH and all other readers, click on the photographs and study those fuel tanks up close.  I hope everyone gains the insights I gained today.