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.

There’s an absolutely outstanding collection of photos that feature steam locos in NSW during the transition from steam to diesel here.

It is not to be missed!

It’s been a while since I actually posted a photo of a locomotive or train here so I thought I’d do something about that today and this is the photo that literally fell out of the photo album that I picked up.

The loco is 7344 and it’s shunting at Pippita but I’m afraid I have no idea of date the photo was taken. I’m not even sure how it came into my collection but I seem to recall that someone I met in Lithgow in the late 1970s gave it to me.

7344 was one of 50 diesel hydraulic shunters built by Walkers in Queensland for the New South Wales Government Railways between October 1970 and March 1973. 7344 entered service in November 1972 and undoubtedly saw service at major yards throughout the state. When this photo was taken 7344 was working on the Abbatoirs line near Homebush.

While some of the locos from this class have been scrapped and others converted for use on various cane lines in Queensland a number of these sturdy little shunters continue in service and this particular loco is now in the hands of 3801 Limited.

Oh and if you’re looking for Pippita on a modern map I don’t think you’re likely to find it because most of that area was redeveloped as part of the Sydney Olympic venue … a far cry from the brickworks, abbatoirs and other industries that used to be serviced by the 73 Class.

Here is a link to a Flickr photostream that features some great historical railway photos taken in NSW, Victoria and South Australia. You’ll also find a few from the Philippines, South Africa and parts of Europe too.

The Australian photos show a time that I remember well

If you take the time to wander through this blog you’re going to see some fairly ordinary examples of my photographic skills so I’m definitely not setting myself up as some kind of guru when it comes to railway photography.

However, I’ve got to say that I’m rather disappointed in what many of today’s self-termed “gunzels” are doing with their cameras. You won’t see much variation in angles or settings. Few people seem to be prepared to venture out when the weather is cold or wet … or even when it’s dark for that matter.

But every now and then I stumble across a real gem as I take a break from work online and meander around the various photo sharing sites looking at photos of trains … and here, on Flickr is one of the best photos I’ve seen in a long time.

There are no plumes of smoke from a hard-working steam engine, no signs of a rare diesel. The lighting is bad because the sun is only just beginning to peek over the horizon and there’s a typical early morning mist that you’ll find at this time of year in country New South Wales.

The photographer isn’t up close and personal to the train, the locos are common branchline units and the photo isn’t even in colour but this photo of 48 Class at Harden in my humble opinion captures the essence and the mystery that’s part of the attraction that trains have for many people.

 If you’re interested in disused railway tunnels then the May 2008 issue of Australian Railway History (it’s out in the newsagents as the moment) has a very interesting article on the old tunnels at Glenbrook, west of Penrith, Clarence east of Lithgow and  at Marrangaroo, west of Lithgow.

Both localities were used to store mustard gas and other chemical weapons that the RAAF had imported from England in the form of bombs in the early part of World War II.

The article is of particular interest to me because my first wife’s father was in the RAAF during and after the war and was stationed at both localities.

He has since passed away but I can clearly remember him telling my wife and I of the time he and several other stores personnel were actually gassed at Glenbrook and were rushed to hospital.

He was then moved to Marrangaroo and was there when the Japanese midget submarines attaced Sydney Harbour. Evidently the attack caused such a panic that the Marrangaroo depot … which housed a lot of munitions not just mustard gas … received instructions to evacuate all the munitions from the depot and hide them in the rough country behind the depot.

And that was very rough country indeed … evidently at times the trucks transporting the munitions into that country had to be winched up steep inclines. Such was the rush to clear everything out of the depot that no one kept accurate records of where various loads of munitions were dumped and when it came time to recover the hidden bombs etc. not everything could be found.

My father-in-law was very clear about the fact that quite a few of the chemical warfare weapons were never recovered because no one could remember where they had been hidden.

So the bombs are still out there and the area where the munitions depot once stood has become much more populated than it once was.

To read more about Australia’s involvement with chemical weapons go to Chemical Warfare in Australia 

I started may railway photography hobby in the last 1960’s but I really only dabbled in it. Here is a link to a site that displays a lot of great work done by somebody who was a whole lot more serious about railway photography in New South Wales in the 60’s than I was.

And don’t be put off by the bland index page - click on a few links and you’ll soon be lost in an era when steam traction was still very important.

At the moment over on Railpage one of the discussion threads is about the demise of the various classes of Alco powered locomotives that once belonged to the New South Wales Railways. Evidently some people were wondering why the railways had decided to get rid of so many locomotives.

That was a rather sad time for many people because it really was the beginning of the end of a very interesting era. These days can you really imagine a time when the north coast line from Newcastle to South Brisbane was served by a class of 40 of the most decrepit looking locomotives you could ever hope to see?

Could you imagine 44 class diesels as being mundane? 47, 48 and 49 class locos were commonplace; 80 class locos hauled the western superfreighters while 81 and 422 class were all you ever saw on the main south.

And then there were those strange 35 class locos that lurked around Werris Creek and could even to be found at South Brisbane. Yep … those were the days … and they all came to an end with the giant locomotive sale at Cardiff.

All those old locomotives were brought into the railway workshops at Cardiff and sold off. Here’s one of the photos that Brad Peadon took in the workshops on December 6, 1994.

The three locomotives you can see here are 44226, 44213 and 44205. According to Brad’s notes on the back of the photo all three were sold to Morrison Knudson although 44226 was subsequently onsold to Silverton.

Whatever happened to the 44 class loco that John Currey - a train driver from Werris Creek - bought?