Model Trains and Things

There’s always something a little forlorn and sad about a locomotive that’s sitting on the scrap line and the scrap lines at Enfield were perhaps a little worse than those at other places.

Here’s 4805 on the scrap line at Enfield back on 21 February 1998.

Photo courtesty of Brad Peadon.

Of course not every locomotive that gets shunted to the scrap line stays there but once a loco becomes a source of spare parts … as 4805 has … then it rarely makes a comeback to revenue service.

When this photo was taken 4805 was around 38 years old and so it would be reasonable to expect that the whole class of 165 locomotives would be on the verge of extinction but not so. A large proportion of the class is still in daily use hauling some major trains and even some of the early members of the class are still around.

Motive Power’s 2007 Fleet List lists 4806 in the Pacific National fleet and stored at Delec while 4818 is stored at Werris Creek. 4819 and 4827 are still in regular use with Railcorp (NSW).

By the way you can find more of the photographer’s work here and you can follow this link to a 48 class forum

Early members of the 44 class were built at A E Goodwin’s factory at St Mary’s and were issued to traffic in a stylish tuscan red and yellow with a thin red separation line as seen here in this photo of a restored 4401 taken by Brad Peadon at Delec in 1996.

This was just the start of a wide variety of colour schemes that that class carried over the years. The first change involved the dropping of the red separation line and the class carried that modified scheme for many years.

Here’s one of the class wearing the modified scheme on a down empty wheat train at Wallerawang in the first half of the 1980s.

There was a time when Wallerawang boasted quite an extensive set of sidings but by the time this photo was taken most of those sidings had been lifted - including the one that had run along the gray area just in front of the camera.

You’ll find the first section of Alco Diesels - the 44 Class by following the link.

It’s hard to believe that the 44 class is 50 years old this month but they are. That means that they were at least 11 years old when I began photographing them around Sydney just after I got my first car.

Here are two of my oldest black and white photos taken at a time when I didn’t think it was important to record dates or loco numbers.

The first shows two 44s running light engine from on the goods only line that passed Rookwood cemetery. These two are possibly heading for Flemington; the junction that will take them either around and onto the main western line or behind the Flemington car sidings is about half a kilometre ahead of them.

The second photo was taken at Enfield as a 44 class prepared to head south with a general goods train. You might also be able to spot the Hammersley Iron locos - another Alco product I think - sitting on a siding across the yard.

100 of these locomotives were built for the New South Wales Government Railways and the class were finally taken off the books in 1994. Today there are around 18 of these locomotives still in service with a several of the private rail operators.