XPTs, Act II

Here is the next XPT installment, starting around 1992. 

1992NP067A 2 car diesel set and the North XPT eye each other off at Maitland on 22 August 1992.

The up Riverina XPT rests for a moment at Moss Vale in 1992.

On 25 March 1992 the down West XPT nears Spring Hill.  Thank you work for sending me to the country on this day.

The up Muwillumbah XPT rolls across the bridge just north of Gloucester on 11 February 1993.  This is one of my favourite train watching locations.

Getting bored yet? I will try to mix it up a bit.

Here's an XPT at platform 16 at Central, due to close-down of the Sydney Terminal yard, on 1 October 1994.

Another one of my favourite places - Urunga, late 1994.

And the big thing that happened to the XPT in the 1990s was that it went south - sadly replacing the loc hauled overnight trains.  But I rode it anyway.

Here's A76 and the XPT at Spencer St Station on 2 August 1994.

And two days later... the City of Cootamundra soon to depart.

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

A very special pig

This weekend appears to be the last hurrah for 3642, as it is due to be retired once more. I say once more because it has retired in 1969, 1973 and 1996. So never say 'never', but I suspect its probably the last time that I'll see it run around unless I get to be a very grumpy old man.

Wikipedia tells me that 'locomotive 3642 is two-cylinder, simple, non-condensing, coal-fired superheated, 4-6-0... express passenger steam locomotive built for the NSW Government Railways in 1926 by Clyde engineering'. I had the great pleasure of being primed all over by '42 last Friday on my last trip behind her, but before I get to that shot, here's a few others from years past...

While still in Government service - at Wollongong on a Port Kembla Inner Harbour tour on 3 September 1967. 

 The following year as a Rail Transport Museum loco - also at Wollongong.

Coupling up to 3651 for a trip up the Hill at Unanderra on 22 June 1969.

At the 'reopening' of Central Station on 28 November 1982.

Back in Wollongong on a Beach Tour in 1983.

On Wentworth Park Viaduct on 31 August 1991.

Heading off to the Southern Highlands for the RTM on 18 September 1994.

On a down Steamfest shuttle at Beresfield on 19 April 2009.

Same even, in 2011, at Maitland.

Shuttling off to Clyde on 11 June 2011.

Off on a Southern Highlander tour, via the Coast: 27 July 2013.

Through Redfern on a shuttle around the suburbs on 28 July 2013.

At rest in Central on 6 June 2014.

Off to Maitland Steamfest on 8 April 2016.

And now, the present... the beginning and the end of my trip last Friday, 13 April 2018.

So, here's to a loco that has spent more time in preservation than in revenue service, and nearly as much time in green as in black... one last look at a very special locomotive, once again in Wollongong in the late 1960s, being admired by the locals.

Cheers,
Don

4499 after being a ghost

A couple of years ago (2016) I published some shots of 4499 shortly after it had been repainted into its unique grey ghost livery in January 1986. If you are wondering what I am talking about and can't be bothered scrolling down to find the article, here is another shot of 4499 heading north through Sawtell with a little Alco cousin - am thinking this was around September 1986 (photo snapped by the Senior on one of his numerous holidays).

I had forgotten that this livery only lasted until the following September (according to the Digest), whereupon it got the candy treatment. So here are a few shots of it in its candy scheme...

Well, here's a bit of '99 but to be fair, this was the shot I wanted - one of Keira Signal Box at Gipps Street, Wollongong.

I am guessing that 4499 spent its last years working out of Broadmeadow depot? I only saw it up north, like this day when I caught it squeezed between 44225 and 4448 near Tamworth at dusk.  The day was 13 April 1992 by the way...

The last time I saw the penultimate member of the 44 class was 22 August 1992 when it rolled by on a container train at Maitland. A nice train to remember it by!

Cheers,
Don

Yawn, NRs...

Now this sounds like a very boring set of shots, but they are a relatively colourful and somewhat groundbreaking loco (in Australian standards anyway).

When NRs commenced in the mid 1990s, they heralded a new era of higher horsepower locomotion.  

In near to original condition, though wearing a Pacific National signboard, NR88 leads a sister through Coniston with the evening steely about a decade after its introduction to service.

NRs were groundbreaking in other ways. Several were allocated to dedicated services, and were painted accordingly. Here a weathered NR57 sits in its Seatrain livery behind an equally tatty NR53, in its Trailerail scheme.

The third of the original trio of dedicated liveries was the grey Steelink, shown here at Maitland on NR58 on an Adelaide to Brisvegas intermodal.

After the initial trio got a coat, not much happened for more than a decade. The second phase of special liveries celebrated passenger services, rather than freight haulage.  First up, two examples of the first Indian Pacific oral blue livery, once more at Central.

I think NR26 was the lead loco on that occasion.

A nice contrast to blue is red, and NR75 got the red treatment in honour of the Ghan passenger train. Here it is at Footscray in the mid noughties.

One of Australia's least run passenger services is the Southern Spirit. That didn't stop Pacific National painting NRs 84 and 85 into a fairly attractive livery. Here NR85 tails two vanilla NRs through the Hunter.

The most recent livery in honour of a passenger train was applied to NR18. Here is is at, you guessed it.... Central, having just come off the Indian Pacific: its reason for uniqueness just beside it.

Its time to finish with possibly the best of the set... I really like the Southern Cross flavour to the current Pacific National design, and not in some brogan sort of way either.  Here is NR62 leading a couple of sisters through Moss Vale recently.

Until next time!

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!