Diversions on a wet afternoon

Just sitting here on the farm, watching the creek rise. Figured it was time to do something productive so I have dug up more photos from Phil Clarke's collection.  These first three date from January 1982 and are taken at Bellambi on the south coast (the station can be seen in the background).  First up, 42204 and a 44 on the down Intercapital Daylight Express to Melbourne - diverted down the Coast.

Wherever the Daylight goes, the Riverina Express follows (or precedes, can't remember which).  So here is a little DEB goodness. Bit of an eclectic mix here, livery wise.

Then finally, at approximately 10:50 am or so (the train was scheduled into Wollongong just before 11), a scheduled service with five Budds and a Tulloch making up the down morning South Coast Express.

Phil was pretty good at giving details on the back of his photos but this one he missed. Anyway its 42212 on an air-conditioned passenger somewhere in NSW or Victoria.

Anyway, back to watching the creek rise.

Cheers

Don

 

Afternoon viewing

Only time today for a few random photos from the Mighty Phil Clarke Collection. And they are random!

First up, a four car DEB set with a 620 set trailing behind. In dry country on the way to or from Canberra on 11 August 1979.

Just over a month earlier, someone had parked box number 8007 in front of a lovely view of a building in Orange (30 June 1979).

At the end of its run on a hot January day, the 15th of the year of 1980, the Comet rests in Parkes station. Something fiddly is happening to its bum - I suspect a 73 class is removing its van for transfer to the overnight Forbes Mail to Sydney.

Up north now - the crew is getting or giving orders from the cab of 4507 which, with a sister Alco, sits in front of a empty coal at Murrurundi on 16 November 1982.

Back to Picton in September 1983. 42205 pilots an up container train.

And last for now - 42104 heads a 422 on a down passenger at a rather dreary Sutherland in February 1980.

Plenty more to come from Phil's collection so stay tuned!

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.

Saturday on the South

I am overjoyed.  I finally found a scrap of paper amongst my many other scraps of paper which explains a series of photos I have been hanging onto for years - 28 years to be precise.

On Saturday, 11 March 1987, we headed off early to Douglas Park on the main south line - it lies between Campbelltown and Picton. We just pulled up on the side of the freeway, as the line parallels the road for about five kilometres.  In those days one could just pull off the freeway for a couple of hours without getting the attention of the authorities.

The special part about these photos is that I didn't for once use a telephoto lens so the photos aren't a series of trains looking like sliced loaves of bread.  What we got that morning was just the then usual parade of local, intrastate and interstate services, stretched out against the background. 

When I scanned these shots in the late 1990s pixels were at a premium, so I scanned the section of the print with the train on it.  This produced a rather elongated and small scan.  I apologise if the photo is too hard to see on this blog - you should be able to just click on the photo to load a hopefully larger version if necessary.

Anyway, enough prose. Instead of putting a rose-coloured commentary to that morning, I am just going to reproduce the notes I took that day along with the photos (apart from the bracketed comments).  

 

7:15am       44 and five cars up service (No photo of this one - dunno what happened here!)

7:20am       G518 up containers (looks like this was the last photo on the reel from the discoloration on the right hand side of the print)

7:25am       8156/G up containers (couldn't resist a close up)

7:47am       Double 81s – up Sydney Express (this is worth snaps of each end of the train)

8:16am       4468 up passenger ex Picton (another close up)

8:26am       Double 81s and 38 wheaties (another bloody close up)

8:35am       Down 7 car DEB set on the Canberra Monaro

8:45am       42201 Down Intercapital Daylight Express (five cars and Spirit dining car)

 

8:50am       44/4481 up wheaty (worth two shots for the close up of the first 44)

9:35am       42204 Two FGs, BN and MFH on a Goulburn passenger

9:45am       42208 in reverse Indian Red on a five car interurban set

10:25am     Up Canberra XPT

And that was it - 12 trains in 3 hours; a typical Saturday morning 28 years ago.

Ciao for now!

Don

Candy DEBs

I thought I should round out my photographic recollections of DEB sets with a series of shots taken in the late 1980s and early 1990s while they wore the 'candy stripe' livery in their last days of regular service.  Even going to through a couple of video clips in...

Let's start with the coldest DEB set I ever traveled in - at Cooma on 14 June 1988.

Another NSW location which I have found to be invariably cold or damp is Wallerawang. Here is a four car set stretching out in front of the power station at that location.

Continuing with the damp theme, it is time for a few from the Southern Highlands. First, a wet Menangle on 3 October 1993...

And a foggy Maldon on 20 November 1993...

And just  a dreary Goulburn...

Probably should move to sunnier climes and times. Here are two shots from the Southern Highlands - first Picton and then Moss Vegas.

Moving onto the Coast, on 9 October 1994 a few of us ascended Farmborough Heights to catch this DEB set descending the Hill.

On the flats approaching Coniston, this shot contains the only non-candy car in this blog.  It is off to Bomaderry with seven of its mates in the mid-1980s.

DEB sets did millions of miles but they did have a tendency to break down a fair bit - in my memory anyway.  Here is one that disgraced itself at platform 1 in Sydney Terminal on 29 February 1992.

Time to finish with a few links to short videos of these beasts from my Youtube channel. First, an up service on the Southern Highlands on 6 September 1993.

Next, a month later a similar service at Maldon - 16 October 1993...

And finally, on the same day a down service arrives at a packed Picton yard (better do a blog on this Saturday morning at some stage!).

Ciao for now!
Don