Model Trains and Things

The Australian Railroad Group … aka ARG … has ceased operations in NSW. At time, if you lived any of the eastern states of Australia the ARG played a major role in your diet despite the fact that you may have never even seen one of their locos.

ARG’s impact on your diet was due to their involvement with the Manildra Group … the biggest provider of flour in Australia. Wherever the Manildra Group had a factory in New South Wales the ARG would be there bringing in the raw materials and hauling out the finished products.

But now ARG has lost the Manildra Group’s contract and the last ARG train ran on November 22. With nothing to haul on this side of the continent ARG are returning their 31/L class and a number of their 22 class diesels to Western Australia. Other members of the 22 class will be used by QRNational but sadly the L class have left the east coast.

Fortunately for us east coasters they’re still around on YouTube and here’s one clip that really highlights the beautiful sound of an L/31 class diesel hard at work.

When I finished the School Certificate at the end of 1966 I had a few months off before I started work with the old Postmaster General’s Department in 1967 so my parents suggested that I head up to Coonabarabran in the north-west of New South Wales to work on my uncle’s farm up there. For a kid who had hardly been out of the city it was an interesting time.

The fact that my uncle’s farm was within easy walking distance of the railway station made it even more interesting. At that time there was a daily (except Sunday) mail train in both directions - an extension of the Mudgee Mail - and a goods train that ran at least three times a week as far as I know.

I took quite a few photos at the railway station while I was there but most of them have either been lost or were of such poor quality I now wonder why I ever kept them. However here are two photos that are worth looking at from interesting summer back in 1966/67.

The first photo shows a C30T shunting the yard

The second shows a damaged C30T (note the damage to the front of the cylinder) that had collided with a vehicle on the level crossing on the down side of the yard. (Coonabarabran wasn’t the end of the line and most trains continued on to Gwabegar)

The collision happened before I arrived in Coonabarabran and from memory the loco was left stowed on the siding for quite some time. I’m not sure when the loco was finally moved from Coonabarabran but I have a suspicion that it was withdrawn from service after the accident and never steamed again.

And just to try and explain the class coding for these locomotives. The New South Wales Government Railways rebuilt a number of suburban C30 class tank locomotives into branch-line tender locomotives when the Sydney suburban network was electrified. The department decided to keep the basic code for the loco but added a suffix of ‘T’ to signify ‘tender’.

An interesting thread over on Railpage.com.au about a tour back in 1973 behind 3203 and 3830  - a tour that I was on - has moved on to begin talking about a tour down the south coast behind 5593. There’s a good photo of 5593 and it’s unusual southern valve gear included in that thread.

That’s not a tour that I went on but I did get to travel down to Kiama on another tour with 5597. I’m not sure of the date but it had to have been around 1966 or 1967. As far as I remember the camera I took with me that day was my fathers old Kodak camera complete with bellows. It might have been an old camera but it still produced decent photos even if the photographer couldn’t,

Here’s 5597 at Sydney Terminal awaiting departure time;

And I took this photo of the unusual valve gear fitted to the 55 class at Kiama:

These photos are among the earliest photos I ever took so out of all the photos I took that day these ones are the only ones worth showing here.