When I was a nipper in the early 1970s the family's white Cortina 440 was pointed south to Melbourne on a couple of school holidays. Its destination was Geelong Road, Footscray - a gritty place in the 1970s but within a couple of blocks of the mainline (surprise surprise).
You have never experienced cold weather until you too have stood on a pedestrian overpass at Footscray on a May evening waiting for the night trains to come out of Spencer Street. And they were always running late so you ended up just being frozen and Dad would get into trouble...
It was only marginally warmer in the afternoons, even when the sun was shining. On Saturday afternoons you could stand at a certain point on the bridge and look westward through a gap between two grandstands to watch the Footscray Bulldogs getting their weekly whipping. That started another passion which went unrequited until last September when they rewarded me with a premiership. But that is another story.
On the upside locos I had never seen before trundled by - along with prehistoric red suburban Tait sets which we never photographed because they were suburbans! Here's a couple of blurry Agfa images that we did manage to keep from those days (May 1973). Lets start with a W249 with a few four wheelers.
More serious horsepower was caught in nearly the same spot when double Ss came through on the broad gauge.
I do remember the 1974 holidays as being sunnier. And it brought out X37 and GM34 (GM24?) on an interstate freight.
Triple Ts, including T409, were caught the same afternoon... evidence of the third T is circumstantial...
And this T nearly snuck past us the other way...
And I think I'll finish with something that probably nearly didnt make the cut because it was a railmotor but I am kinda glad the trigger was pressed.
Happy Easter all!
Don
Showing posts with label S class. Show all posts
Showing posts with label S class. Show all posts
Saturday, April 15, 2017
Sunday, December 9, 2012
There is an S in Hamilton
Well, technically there is no 'S' in Hamilton but on Wednesday this week (5 December 2012) when preoccupied in thought and waiting for a train to Sydney, I looked up expecting to find a spark arriving from Maitland. Instead I found a wonderful yellow S idling into the platform.
These days, the occurrences of a loco appearing in the stretch from Islington Junction to Newcastle proper are fairly rare. And an S class being that loco probably compounds the rarity. Still, I am sure its happened before and it will doubtless happen again.
But S317's arrival was a nice 'gift' from the railway gods so the camera was grabbed immediately and a photograph was taken.
At this point the camera battery expired, so the raining shots were taken with the trusty Samsung mobile phone, so please excuse the quality.
I took the next shot specifically to frame the Hamilton signage... then again, I could have just photoshopped it in there (if I knew how).
And as soon as it arrived, it was off again.
So, I will get back to describing some Nurail travels soon enough... but I trust at least someone else will get some enjoyment out of an S being somewhere a bit unusual.
These days, the occurrences of a loco appearing in the stretch from Islington Junction to Newcastle proper are fairly rare. And an S class being that loco probably compounds the rarity. Still, I am sure its happened before and it will doubtless happen again.
But S317's arrival was a nice 'gift' from the railway gods so the camera was grabbed immediately and a photograph was taken.
At this point the camera battery expired, so the raining shots were taken with the trusty Samsung mobile phone, so please excuse the quality.
I took the next shot specifically to frame the Hamilton signage... then again, I could have just photoshopped it in there (if I knew how).
And as soon as it arrived, it was off again.
So, I will get back to describing some Nurail travels soon enough... but I trust at least someone else will get some enjoyment out of an S being somewhere a bit unusual.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)









