A Tour Behind a 55 Class
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.
November 21st, 2008 at 8:56 am
Stuart,
Those photos are an amazing step back in time, especially for someone like me who has never even SEEN a 55 Class before (but who really, really wants to). I know what you mean about early photos usually being dodgy, back then it’s a case of “oh good, a train, point, click”. Still, I wouldn’t have known about those two unless you told me (which you already did…)
Thanks for sharing mate, keep up the good work!
Regards,
Trent
March 24th, 2009 at 10:46 am
These are fantastic pictures. I grew up in the country, so it was always a thrill to see a real train travel across your farm…of course there may have been a few pennies on the tracks
January 4th, 2011 at 6:23 am
The tour with 5597 was in 1966. My photos are here.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/grahamh_pix/sets/72157610783735945/
January 4th, 2011 at 6:53 am
Graham thanks for sharing your photos – you were obviously shooting with a much better camera than I had at the time
Stuart