80s Rail Cars on the Coast

Time to stick a few more up from the lens of Phil Clarke, who passed away about 18 months ago.

This time I thought I would pick a few of his rail car shots around the Illawarra.  To start off, here's a Budd set heading north through Scarborough in December 1981.

Can't have Budds without Tullochs! Here's 4470 heading Set 148 through Bellambi on 19 November 1982.

Nothing says 'passenger comfort' more than a quin set of CPHs jostling along. Here is CPH 13 leading the 8am Port Kembla worker's train at Coniston in November 1982.

Nothing was more prosaic than a 2 car diesel train on a local passenger service, like this one at Bellambi on 19 November 1982.

I will finish up with a few more snaps of diesel hauled trains, composed of end-of-life rail cars - 44100 on two such services in early 1983.  The first photo is at Wollongong, I suspect the other is round Bellambi.

Cheers!

Don

Tin hares, part 9

I have been trying to improve my use of the 'labels' feature of this blog, which makes searching easier for me if not for my readers. I was a bit surprised to find no fewer than 8 posts covering CPHs in whole or part.  I guess it shows just what a versatile piece of rolling-stock they were/are.

This versatility is reflected in the following rather lengthy blog, as I attempt to post a bunch of previously unused shots of varying quality taken over a 45 year period. This period ended a decade ago and there are still a number of units plying their trade honourably around NSW's rail system.

I will start with a photo which I am guessing was a 'point and shoot at that' opportunity.  Not sure who got this one - I was about 1 year old when 3268 and CPH 32 were photographed around  Menangle in 1964.

About a decade later, CPH 34 was picked up arriving at Thirlmere with the shoppers' special in 1975.  We were out there as Dad was helping to establish the RTM's site.  This is one of his shots.  I won't be posting my effort!

The following year Dad took a ride to Hay and return on a CPH.  He still complains about the quality of the ride/seating.

Around 1980 I idly snapped this consist of CPH 22, a CTH and another CPH at Sutherland.  It was idling, waiting for a near-clapped out Budd set to arrive. It was raining, which is also something you don't see much of these days.

This next one is also a point and shoot - from the road at Dunmore.  Perhaps not the greatest composition but I have always liked railmotors being juxtaposed against the landscape.

One of the first CPHs to operate as a heritage item was CPH 6, photographed here in Dubbo on the long weekend in October 1985.

While some were in heritage operations, others were still trundling along in revenue service for the NSW Government. A grotty CPH 33 was providing hair/hare raising rides to Moss Vale at the time this photo was snapped in 1989. 

In Easter 1994 CPH 24 and CPH 16 were to be found at Cowra.

CPH 18 can be found in 2019 trundling the Picton to Mittagong loopline.  Here is, having just been returned to service, at Sydney Terminal at Central Station's 100th birthday celebrations on 5 August 2006. 

Any review of tin hares must acknowledge the great work of the Railmotor Society in maintaining its collection of these beasts.  Here are a couple at Maitland Steamfest in 2009.

Cheers!
Don

The lost children of Wollongong

The last two posts have been rather sombre affairs so I thought I would take it up a notch before the month is out... this time covering the motley collection of vehicles which seemed to congregate on the eastern (down) side of Wollongong station.  

I had started planning this post with a question - which wagon or carriage are you aware of that stayed in (some sort of) service but remained in the same place for the longest.  I had been thinking the diner parked near platform 15 at Sydney Terminal - it always seemed to be there in the 1970s and 1980s.  I have surprised myself by apparently taking a photo of it (AB91 methinks) in 1981, and then being able to find it for this post.

But I digress, Wollongong. This next shot was taken sometime between March 1961 when the Budds were introduced to the Illawarra, and mid-1965 when steam had disappeared.  The photo was taken from one of Dad's favourite family-dinner-out locations, the top floor of the Sydney Wide Discount store on the corner of Crown Street and Gladstone Avenue.  We got hundreds of chip dinners on the top level of this store, so Dad could snap shots like the following.

From the shadows, I am guessing this was a midday sojourn.  My interest is only for the three vans in the left of the picture, but I guess other readers may be interested in what was squatting around the turntable.  This next shot gives you a better view of its inhabitants.

But I digress once more... back to the vans.  Rolling into 1966, 3014T did a week or so of relief work in the Illawarra whilst the usual 30 tank was serviced.  On dusk on 28 April 1966, 3014T can be seen pulling past one of the more unusual vehicles in the collection.

One day I will Photoshop that slide.  OK, by 1969 when the NMRA visited rainy Wollongong and points south in CPH19, the line up may have changed somewhat.

I have nothing from the seventies to add right now, but the following snap from the favoured location in 1980 shows the collection of vans had been joined by an FO-type carriage.  And yes, not ot digress again but those orange things in the yard are AIS diesels.

It only took me two years to get around to it, but I did manage to photograph that carriage.  I could be totally wrong but I think it was carrying the title of L875 at the time.

And here is L875 with its collection of six runty orphans.

I suspect the line-up didn't stay together for long.  By December 1983 L875 had been joined by a number of cream-coloured vehicles.

And then the great leveler, electrification, came.  This final shot show Wollongong yard under transformation.  The little collection of vehicles have gone - most likely trundled at a slow speed to the back of Port Kembla, then torched. Oh dear, ending a blog on another sad note.

I will try to devise a cheery post over the next week or so.

Don

A few from the south

School holidays in our family meant the chance to hook up an impossibly small caravan to the family 4 cylinder vehicle and tour the off-peak locations of the State of NSW - read, the Snowies in summer and the North Coast beach tour in May. Regardless of where we went, there was always a railway line just around the corner.

January 1978 was no different to many other family holidays.  Baking in the car, baking in the caravan.  Visiting towns where you literally melted into the bitumen.  And that brings us to Tumut.  Well, just outside of Tumut, near Gilmore.  Here we waited one weekday morning for the arrival of the railmotor from Cootamundra (the motor from Coota in local venacular).  

While I can't tell you the precise date I do remember the time - just after 9am.  Moreover, I remember the local radio station - most likely 2WG from Wagga Wagga - finishing the news broadcast, resulting in Herb Albert's Tijuana Brass playing the introduction to the John Laws program.  How's that for errant trivia? Anyway, double CPHs hove into view around this time.  There was no way you would be getting a closer shot that this one - too many Joe Blakes at that time of year.

The other notable railway location we visited that holiday was Griffith.  Notable because it was at least 45 degrees.  Two shots were grabbed that day.  I suspect the 2 car diesel is the connection off/to the Riverina Express, while the X class was just doing its stuff.

The lack of shadows in these two shots give a clue to the time of day - high noon or thereabouts.  

Until next time!
Don

The innocence & incompetence of youth

In 1978 I was an accomplished photographer, or so I thought. I was also a teenager and so I couldn't be told anything. Or maybe I just didn't understand the complexities offset viewfinders... anyway, that situation explains the following shots.

We had been advised that the rolling stock for the workers trains was to be 'upgraded', which we took to mean that the pre-WWII carriages were to be withdrawn. We had managed to basically get no photos of their predecessors (the FO sets) prior to their withdrawal earlier that decade so we weren't going to be caught out again. This time we grabbed the trusty Agfa instamatic and headed down to North Wollongong station one sunny afternoon.

Norff Gong (as pronounced by those in the know) is best for up trains in the afternoon, and I think I may have already posted this first one of 4825 previously. It hints at what is to come - as the loco just squeezes into the left of the frame (buffers don't count).

Down trains were a bit tricky as they would burst out from under the road bridge adjacent to the Mount Pleasant Signal Box at full speed, and really only hit their anchors on the final approach to the platform. We weren't so hung up about SPADs in the 70s. This meant a bit of a scramble out of the Datsun 180B if you weren't paying attention.  But one of us was paying attention when 4870 cruised into town.

As film was expensive, this was the last of the down trains photographed that afternoon. We also seemed reluctant to photograph anything other than 48s on workers trains - goodness knows what pearls we let slip by.

Anyway, back to offset viewfinders.  The following shots aren's entirely attributable to Agfa's design department. I had been warned, but I had also been told to get close in on the train as we wanted shots of the carriages. Well, as 4892, 4856 and 4828 worked their trains though, I snapped away... 90% of a train is still a train?  Here they are for posterity.

So, you can bet there was a bit of an inquest when this roll of film came back from the developers. I still wince when I see them, 40 years later.

And if it was bad enough, we did hang around for one last shot.  We were hoping for five railmotors headed to Waterfall.  Instead we got three - or rather, 2.9.

Thanks for hanging around, too.  Will return with some of the Senor Train Hunter's blurred shots in my next post, as we work hard to maintain low publishing standards.

Cheers,
Don

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.