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S.A.R. NARROW
GAUGE
PETERBOROUGH DIVISION
This was my first big trip interstate,
winter 1962, Melbourne - Sydney - Broken Hill -
Peterborough - Port Pirie - Adelaide - Melbourne. I was 18 and a bit and the 2nd class fare was about
£15 for a student concession. Those days it was
Pounds, Shillings and Pence.
Earlier on this morning, at 3.59am, I had arrived at Peterborough on the Express from Broken Hill and it was a bit too early and too dark and I was a bit too tired to do any exploring, so after I had seen the Brill railcar off to Port Pirie I retreated to the Waiting Room for a bit of a kip before the sun rose.
In the manner of railway towns everywhere Peterborough never slept, so my sleep was pleasantly disturbed by the sounds of a busy
rail yard, the clanking rods of a little T class engine, or the heavy rumble and shuffle of the 400 class
Garratts.
Come daylight it was off to the Refreshment Room for a cuppa and a piece of fruitcake and then a walk down to the Roundhouse.
As I got close, T244 and T209 on a stock train clattered into town from the west.
The wind was blowing strongly from the south and the clouds were raggedy and it was chilly.
The sounds come back to me almost as strongly as the sights.... boots crunching on ballast and gravel and the roar of that distant 400 down by the coal tower coming and going on the wind.
This was what I saw......... I thought I'd died and gone to Heaven.
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Peterborough
Roundhouse and Coal Gantry.
The line to Port Pirie
branches off to our left, and the Quorn line off to the right.
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Peterborough
Railway Station
The
station itself had something, it was no architectural
masterpiece, the original building was a typical South
Australian country station and it had colonised 1
road, the platform road from the railmotor shed at the
far end to the Yardmaster's Office nearest the camera.
I've got to say, too, that I always preferred a
railway station at ground level. That is, after I
discovered that there were such things in Australia.
Me being a Victorian used to high level platforms with
enamelled signs at each end saying...NO ROAD. |
|
Garratt
404 Westbound
approaching Peterborough. (auto)
| 404's
train is rumbling into town from the mines of Broken
Hill, this would have to be after the Christmas 1962-63 shutdown, auto couplers have been fitted. The
Terowie line is slewing off to our right and to our
left we have a magnificent example of the classic
corrugated iron backyard dunny, blowfly heaven. |
|
Westbound
Goods, leaving Peterborough. (hook) |
402
Peterborough Yard. (hook) |
402
Eastbound Peterborough. (hook) |
402
Gladstone facing East. (hook) |
404,
Westbound, Peterborough. (auto) |
407,
Westbound, Peterborough. (auto) |
I remember vividly the presence of 404 just before departure for Broken
Hill.
The racket was incredible, but Peterborough slept through it.
It was the town's bread and butter and every night was the same. |
Terowie
bound, ex Peterborough. (auto)
|
401
Peterborough from Cockburn. (hook)
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Peterborough.
404 departing for Terowie. (auto) |
404
Eastbound Peterborough. (hook) |
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Garratt
406 Peterborough. (hook)
Hurlstone
Street Level Crossing.
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The roundhouse shot.
The S.A.R was the only
railway in Australia that followed U.S. practice
and always stabled their engines funnel first.
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402 on
Turntable_Peterborough. (hook)
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402
& 408 Peterborough Loco. Winter 1962. (hook)
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400
class Beyer Garratt, Peterborough Roundhouse
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400
& 247 Peterborough Roundhouse.
January 1963. (hook) |
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Coal
gantry and Oil tanks, Peterborough Loco
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The Rat was No. 97, the loco
pilot/shunter.
I
always wondered why it's steam dome was nearly
as big as it's boiler, it did look a bit deformed.
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T
class engines at Peterborough
Loco
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We going
to Port Pirie. Jan.1963
|
| I'm
pretty sure I was going to Port Pirie.....let's see, if I'm
heading west from Peterborough and it's mid summer the sun
would be high in the southern sky, which it is. So that
makes it January 1963. This was a very pleasant way to while
away a few hours, clattering along at 25 mph behind a little
oil burning T class and pausing every now and again to knock
a wagon or two around. Along the way a chopper (hook)
coupled train had a kind of surging motion, I don't remember
the trip in the van being anything like the vicious rides
I'd had in a VR six wheel Z van at the end of a long string
of auto coupled wagons on an undulating road. |
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408
Belalie
North. (hook)
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402
Port Pirie Yard. (hook)
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T225,
T236 and Garratt 402 Port
Pirie Loco
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Port
Pirie Loco
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| Before I actually set eyes on the SAR narrow gauge, I had only seen photos of these T class locos and I thought them downright ugly, unredeemable. That changed one night in winter 1962 at Cockburn, the eastern extremity of the SAR Peterborough Division, when a little T backed down onto the westbound express from Broken Hill. I spent most of the freezing night sitting out on the steps of our end platform sitting
car. I tried for a cab ride, but there had been a recent mishap of some kind and the driver wasn't
too keen. Second best was pretty good though. The train crew were unconcerned, risk management hadn't been thought of then. The night was perfectly still and I vividly remember taking water at some desert halt, the clang as the tank lid hit the deck of the tender, the rush of water into the tank, the panting of the compressor and all the other sounds of a steam locomotive at rest. Then the tank lid clanged shut and the guard gave the right away,
the whistle shrieked and we were off, accelerating hard up to the line speed of 35mph. It doesn't sound like much but it felt fast. |
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Gladstone
Yard. RX210 and T50. 1963
| Broad gauge Rx 210 and narrow gauge T50 shunt the dual gauge yard at Gladstone in the mid north of South Australia.
The Rx had a big, booming chime whistle like most SAR broad gauge locos that would just about knock over a brick dunnyhouse and the little T had a shrill PHEEEEEEEP that was lovely to hear on a clear, still desert night. |
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T242
at Gladstone. (Broad and narrow gauge)
Dunno
what I like best about this shot........maybe the
distant brakevan with it's Webb era marker lights
and the smudge of engine smoke drifting away, maybe
the dual gauge yard littered with wagons..........or
the felt hatted enginemen strolling back to 242
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| For those who don't know South Australia, Gladstone was an important junction between Peterborough and Port Pirie. The broad gauge came in from the
South and Adelaide and there was a narrow gauge branch running north to Wilmington. I wouldn't be surprised if the only thing still recognisable from back
then is
the hill
in the
distance (see picture T242 at Gladstone above).
Click
HERE
to
see Gladstone yard with the hill today
2005
I'm not one to regret the passing of the Good Old Days, but our railways were much more interesting then, before they were rationalised and de-populated.
T242 is another of those Australian locos, like the Victorian A2, whose useful life was extended through the lean times of the Great Depression and the Second War and then the massive postwar period of growth when everything was scarce. It is a much modified
engine, essentially a 19th century engine with Stephenson's valve gear but then superheated, converted to oil fuel with a heavily rebuilt front end and dwarfed by it's tender.
The T's lasted right to the end of steam on the South Australian narrow gauge divisions. |
|
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T220 is running through the
Peterborough platform road
having come into town from the east. Note the S.A.R
issue verandah waterbag hanging off the cab.
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T 199 at
level crossing at Hurlstone Street
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2 x T
class, Peterborough
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T227,
Stock train Peterborough
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Peterborough,
East End
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Coal
Grab, Peterborough Loco
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These
next 2 pictures were taken atop of the Peterborough
Coal Gantry. Be assured that we had paid a visit to the loco foreman's office before scaling the coal tower and that no objections were raised. It was just the usual " Go for your life boys, just be a bit careful".
Can you imagine that happening in 2009??
I wish I'd had a better camera and a bit more photographic nous when I took these photos, I had neither but I cherish these shots and these memories.
And I am forever grateful for those easier days and those hospitable and tolerant South Australian railwaymen.
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I look at these pictures and I marvel at the freedom us teenage railfans were allowed on railway property all over Australia.
A courtesy visit to the Shed Foreman, " Mind if I have a bit of a look around the shed" and the answer almost always was along the lines of " Go for your life son, just be a bit careful".
It wasn't just around Loco Depots, most railwaymen had at the least an amused tolerance of our interest and plenty of them would go out of their way to make you welcome so long as you didn't make a nuisance/dickhead of yourself. Anyway you pretty soon learned to look out for yourself, the railway almost became your natural habitat, especially at a place like Peterborough.
I made three visits there in 1962-63 and at that time the Division was still a very busy all steam
operation........ except for a couple of Brill railcars that is. And they were honorary steam locos anyway.
Hardly anyone I knew owned a car so all travel was by rail. I hitch hiked too if need be. At Peterborough there was a Refreshment Room and Bar and a very comfortable Waiting Room which was headquarters and campsite for the duration. I do use the word comfortable fairly loosely, but it was warm and dry and you could safely leave your
meager kit there while you explored and photographed. Train Control for the Division was at the station and they very obligingly called the trains for us as they reported at the last halt " Train 102, Engine 408, through Ucolta
11:17 " giving you plenty of time to walk out along the line and get a photo.
The 400s were really something, they were allegedly painted black but in fact were just on the green side of black, " Improved Engine Black" may have been the official name, on the other hand it may have come from the fertile mind of one Dave MacCartney, I can't remember. As you can see from the
above pictures they were an impressive looking engine......and they were
LOUD.
I was on my way back to Victoria from a visit to the
S.A.R.'s Port Lincoln Division, that would have been late January 1963, the 400s and the ore wagons got auto couplers during the Christmas-New Year shutdown of the Broken Hill mines. Later in the year the diesels started to take over. I've never been back.
Late in 1969, in the last days of the narrow gauge main line, some of the Garratts enjoyed a brief swansong while the 830 class Alcos were converted for the new standard gauge line, but unfortunately this didn't coincide with my annual leave from the Tramways Board, so I missed out.
I've tried to pass on a bit of the feel and atmosphere of Peterborough in the early '60s.
I look back and I realise how lucky I was, when Dinosaurs still walked the Earth and I saw them.
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S.A.R. NARROW
GAUGE
Trip on the PORT LINCOLN DIVISION
December 1962 -
January 1963
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Port
Lincoln Division Map |
Here
I've attached the map of the Port Lincoln Division taken from the August 1961 Public Timetable.
We covered all the lines except Kowulka to Kevin and Rudall to Buckleboo and given the sparseness of the services and our limited time there it was pretty good going. |
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Port
Lincoln Station
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| The
station, which is still standing, is a pretty impressive
public building. Much more impressive than that at
Peterborough which was the headquarters of a much busier Division. |
| At
right: Brill 487 is lurching out of the platform road and setting out for Minnipa, the passenger load would be pretty negligible but the two vans hint at a fair bit of roadside van goods. The passenger service on this Division lasted 'til 1968. The cars in the yard are Relay Vans used on the Buckleboo working, two separate crews worked these trains out and back in relaying shifts, one on and one off. |
487 Port
Lincoln
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Fageol
109 Port Lincoln Loco Depot
|
Left:
Fageol
109 railcar, this car operated until August 1961 and we found it lurking in the weeds at the Port Lincoln depot along with other surplus to requirements engines and rolling-stock. These cars were converted from motor omnibuses during the '30s to replace a passenger service which consisted mostly of goods trains with passenger cars attached and despite appearances they would have made a massive improvement to the quality of service. Even in 1963 they looked archaic and the Brill cars that we rode were very basic by our 2008 standards. Basic or not I'd happily drag my old carcase around on this trip again if I could.....
Not as hardy now 45 years later, but I reckon I could put up with the aches and stiffness for weeks
after. |
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|
This
is Wharminda, on the Port Lincoln Division of The South
Australian Railways late in the afternoon of the 4th of
January 1963. We are 87¼ miles from Port Lincoln and it
will be after midnight when we get there.
I became interested in, I should probably say aware of, this
narrow gauge Division when my Grandma dug out a pre-war
S.A.R. passenger timetable which listed the fortnightly
Mount Hope goods, possibly the most infrequent regularly
timetabled train in Australia at the time. It was still
listed in the 1962 edition so just after Christmas 1962 I
set off for Mount Hope via Sydney, Broken Hill, Port Augusta
and Port Lincoln arriving there in time to catch the weekly
train to Buckleboo which was Brill motor 105 towing a tiny
Fageol trailer. There were four of us travelling and when we
reached Rudall we transferred to 262 up goods with 209 on
the front and ambled along to Wharminda for a crew change,
believe it or not there was a barracks at this forsaken
spot. You'd hope the crews carried plenty of tucker because
it was a long way to the shop!
There was still a lot of bagged wheat on the Eyre Peninsula
at this time, I think this silo would have been pretty
recent.
When we got back to Port Lincoln we had two days to wait for
the next train but the Stationmaster had left the Waiting
Room open for us so we made ourselves comfortable. |
851 Penong |
Thevenard
by Moonlight |
|
Above:
851 is ready to depart the end of the line, Penong, with another trainload of bagged wheat, this train was an advertised connection through to Port Lincoln although an overnight stay was necessary at Ceduna or Thevenard.
The next morning departure was at 4.25 am out of Thevenard so naturally we made ourselves comfortable in the Brill motor which was docked with it's trailer pointing at Port Lincoln 269½ miles away. In those days I could sleep anywhere, wouldn't see a bed for weeks. I've gotten soft in my dotage, these days a swag is the minimum.
Above right: The previous night we had arrived from the east on the same Brill motor,
No.101 with trailer 303 at about 9.00 pm, by the looks of it a full moon. The tripod and cable release had to come out of the bag.
We had hoped to make it out to Kevin before we went to Penong, but 851 failed so we had to be content with the trip out to Penong. Compared to Mount Hope this was a metropolis, inhabited mostly by flies.
We paid for every mile we travelled on the Port Lincoln Division, the old SAR didn't care if your conveyance resembled a travelling chook shed, they still chased the revenue. Unlike some other government railways.
Although we all slept rough we made sure that every day we had a decent meal. Every town of any size had at least one cafe, usually run by a Greek family, where you could get a decent feed at a reasonable price. Steak, chips and salad, bread and butter and a pot of tea would be pretty typical. That kept your energy up, I was still a teenager, I had hollow legs, always hungry. You could usually get a breakfast of fresh rolls before the rest of the town woke up too, you just followed your nose to the bakery. |
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The End of the Line. Mt Hope
Mount Hope
 |
In actual distance Mount Hope wasn't all that far from Port Lincoln and civilisation, but the only place I've been to that seemed more remote was when travelling up the old Central Australian Railway on the Dirty Ghan, a very slow goods train with a couple of cars attached. More about that another time.
We arrived at Mount Hope very late in the afternoon, maybe more like early evening and all that had to be done was for the open wagons to be set out and for the engine, the gin and the pig to reverse on the triangle and set back onto the van.
As I remember the crew took their crib then and as dusk drew in we departed on a nonstop run to Yeelanna arriving about 10.00pm. According to my skimpy notes we did a fair bit of roadside work on the way back to Port Lincoln but I remember little, must have been asleep.
Westy reckons that Pearlah Bank was a bit of a battle for 180. We eventually got into Port Lincoln about 6.00am, about eight hours late according to the Working Timetable issued on 9/1/61. That's 23 hours for the return trip of 147½
miles.
There was never a silo here of course so maybe the local cockies brought their mechanisation with them but I reckon just as likely every bag of wheat had to be lumped from the farmer's truck and stacked in this rake of wagons, lucky they had a fortnight to do it in. Indeed another world.
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Minnipa,
South Australia, January the 8th, 1963.
This is the weekly passenger train to Thevenard, a
Brill Motor and trailer. Minnipa has a train order
signal, why?, there has never been a train through
here that hasn't stopped. I must say it looks good
though, it really adds something to the railway
scene whilst being totally useless.
Anyway.......at 4.19pm, not precisely, train 171
clattered out of Minnipa bound for Thevenard and the
shores of the Great Australian Bight and your four
would-be intrepid travellers were aboard.
112 miles and four and a bit hours later we got
there. |
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Minnipa
Cummins
|
Ningana,
on the Mount Hope line |
Ningana, Thursday, 10th of January 1963.
T180
is at the head of the fortnightly goods bound for
Mount Hope, there is a gin behind the tender
and
the cattle wagon contained a bloody great pig.
T180
is facing directly into the late afternoon sun, and has set out that tarped wagon
in two road. The
rake of open wagons will go to Mount Hope to be
loaded with bagged wheat. There were silos on the
Port Lincoln Division but at this time, January
1963, quite a bit of the crop came out in hessian
bags. |
|
|
1961 Eyre Peninsula WTT
|
Yeelanna,
junction for Mount Hope
|
Thursday
11th of January 1963 and the fortnightly Mount Hope goods
clatters into Yeelanna, the junction station, it's train no.
115 and the engine is T class No. T180. It was pure luck
that we were on the Peninsula on the right Thursday. This
train was listed in the S.A.R. Country Timetable but who
knows how long it had been since a member of the public had
ridden it, it was going nowhere and not too often at that.
There were no silos on this line, most of the traffic was
wheat and it came in hessian bags, this whole rake of wooden
bogie wagons was left out at Mount Hope to come back a
fortnight later loaded with bagged wheat.
The branch made a trailing junction with the main line so
the engine and the gin ran the van around and took a trip
around the triangle before heading off through the scrub and
the saltpans.
Some parts of the line had a 5mph limit so it wasn't a quick
trip and the line was closed beyond Kapinnie in 1965.
Coming
back from Mount Hope
I had to be pretty sparing with film back then, I would have
taken maybe 60 photos in all the time I was on the Port
Lincoln Division, five rolls of 12 frames each. At the time
I was a bit disappointed with the photos I took, technically
they were none too flash, but today I am just grateful that
I was there with a halfway decent camera and very forgiving
film.
The Eyre Peninsula is a very interesting part of Australia
and Peter Knife's book "Peninsula Pioneer"
is a treasure house of information about the railway and the
white settlement which mostly followed it.
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The Eyre Peninsula Touring Party broke up at Port Lincoln on Friday 11/1/63, Westy and John Brady headed back to Port Adelaide on The
M.V. Troubridge and Ray Graf and I stuck out our thumbs and hitched back north to Whyalla to visit the B.H.P line which ran out to the iron ore deposits at Iron Knob and Iron Baron. I think it was called a tramway, but it was really a pretty heavy duty narrow gauge railway. |
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BHP WHYALLA
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Beyer-Peacock 2-6-2T No.3
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<<
Whyalla
- Iron Knob - Iron Baron Map.
If you take another look at the map travelling north along the shore of Spencer Gulf you will see another isolated railway, from Whyalla to Iron Knob and Iron Baron, this is also 3"6' and serves iron ore deposits. I travelled out to the Knob after leaving Port Lincoln.
Ray and I rode out to Iron Knob and back in an ex S.A.R brakevan. I must have been running out of film because I
haven't got many shots of their main line operation which was run with General Motors G12 diesels.
However.....Ray and I were allowed a free run of B.H.P's railway operation, " just be a bit careful fellas". Well, we were, and just as well, it was a pretty hazardous location for the unaware and you wouldn't get within a bulls roar of any site like it today.
<< There were a few remnants of the steam days hanging around their loco depot and a picture of one of the remnants is
opposite Whyalla No 3. It's a much modified Beyer Peacock 2-6-2 tank, 1908 vintage I think. It was in steam as a stationary boiler, dunno what it was providing steam for though. |
| Whyalla No.4......... I dunno how long it had been since this engine had ventured out on BHP's main line but it was still useful in early 1963, it had a tender full of coal. Built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works in the U.S.A in 1914 to bring iron ore down from the Middleback Range to Whyalla it was superseded pretty quickly by bigger Baldwin 2-8-2s. By the time I got there in 1963 the big engines had been replaced by GM diesels and cut up and made into Toyotas, but this little jigger was still
steamable. |
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Baldwin No.4
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I'm often fascinated by the unremarked detail in a picture.
e.g. in the coupler shot, the stuff in the background against the corrugated iron wall, there is a jack there
and various drums and kero tins adapted for useful purposes, recycling ain't a new thing. And that's a neat looking little three wheel trolley, they didn't get that at Bunnings. It must have been some kind of maintenance point with that light sticking out of the wall quite low down.
Mark noticed that the corrugated iron shed had no guttering, no way of collecting run-off in a very dry place |
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Turns
Night into Day
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Looking
down the boiler
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Air
Pump
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Breakdown
Crane, Whyalla
| Broken Hill Proprietory's
3' 6" line out from Whyalla to the iron ore was called a tramway..... I don't think so. Did you ever see a tramway with a breakdown crane like this one?
It was actually a very impressive, heavy duty railway. |
|
Steam Crane, Whyalla
|
We slept on the beach and communed with the local mozzies, lucky for me I don't rate as a delicacy, but they buzzed around me all night trying to figure out why not.
We were over Whyalla by Sunday morning so there was nothing for it but to hitch up to Port Augusta and over the Pichi Richi Pass to
Quorn. |
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COMMONWEALTH AND S.A.R.
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Hawker
| So....
this is Hawker, South Australia. January 1963.
I've pretty much come to the end of my photos of
the friendly South Australian narrow gauge
railways and this Commonwealth Railways line to
Hawker from Quorn was the last regularly operating
remnant of the old Central Australian Railway
south of Maree. And I reckon that this photo was
probably the last frame of the last film that I
exposed on this long narrow gauge ramble. |
Adelaide - Alice Timetable
|
Quorn.
The train has just arrived from Peterborough
T211
has just arrived at Quorn on the weekly Hawker
goods and from this point it will cease to be an
S.A.R train and become a Commonwealth Railways
train. 211 will continue to Hawker but the S.A.R
brakevan will come off and be replaced by the
ComRails van lurking behind the engine, see the
taildisc. That van had been the Hotel Quorn for
Ray Graf and I while we waited overnight for the
goods to arrive and we camped in it when we got
back from Hawker too.
|
I
read somewhere, can't think where, that in it's heyday the
railway employed 400 people at Quorn, that figure seems a
lot but it was definitely a railway town before it was
bypassed by the standard gauge line between Port Augusta
and Maree.
Quorn railway station was unusual, still is, the building
is set well back from the tracks. In this photo you can
see the paved strip alongside the tracks and the lights on
the poles but there is a paddock between here and the
station building and an imposing railway station it is
too.
According to a 1930s South Australian Railways time table
I have a train set out from Quorn for Alice Springs on
every second Thursday, the Alice was 746 miles away and
when you passed Hawker you only had 705 miles to go. Well
over 1000 kilometres in the new money.
Don't know about you, but in my minds eye I can see
passengers stepping down from the cars onto that narrow
strip of asphalt to stretch the legs and not one of them
without a hat.
The train was here for two hours, plenty of time for a
meal in the Railway Refreshment Rooms or a few beers over
the way at The Transcontinental Hotel .
Take a look at the attached timetable and see how long it
took to get to the Alice.
|
Quorn, January 1963. Along with Ray Graf I'd hitched
up from Whyalla to Port Augusta and then up through
the Pichi Richi Pass to ride the weekly goods to
Hawker over all that was left of the southern
section of the Central Australian Railway.
A word or two of explanation may be necessary here.
The narrow gauge Central Australian Railway ran east
from Port Augusta to Quorn where it connected with
the South Australian line from Peterborough, it then
ran north through Hawker all the way to Alice
Springs. The section between Hawker and Maree was
abandoned when the new standard gauge line was built
between Port Augusta and Maree.
|
|
NM34 at Quorn
NM34 |
NM,
Port Augusta Loco |
Silverton
Tramway No. 28. Railway Town. Broken Hill. 1962. |
|
A
three car set of the classic Bluebird railcars nears Pirie
and the end of its journey from Adelaide. The passengers
will eventually alight in the middle of Ellen Street and
hopefully be treated with respect by the local motoring
population as they make their way to the kerb. I don't seem
to have a photo of the old SAR station there, it was
unique. |
Bluebirds,
Port Pirie
|
|
900
class arriving Ellen Street Port Pirie. (JM)
Station is to the left of the 905 engine.
|
Last
train to leave Ellen Street station. 1967 (JM)
Station tower can be seen behind the 900.
|
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Old
Ellen Street Station now as Museum. 2005 (JM)
The centre plantation was once the railway line.
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S.A.R. BROAD GAUGE
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F
Class Tank Engine, Mile End Loco
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F170
|
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Old
and Older
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629,
Mile End Loco
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504,
Mile End
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Mile
End, 504 semi-derelict
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629,
Mile End Loco
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Twin
930's
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Trip
to Victor Harbour
I thought I'd lost any chance of seeing one of the big eight coupled engines in steam, let alone get to ride behind one, Heavy Harry was long gone and I'd missed the last runs of 5711 in N.S.W.
There had already been a trip run with 504 in 1961 to Tailem Bend and that was before I'd ventured out of Victoria, I would have been at school still.
But I'd reckoned without Dean Harvey and the ever enterprising SA Division of the Australian Railway Historical Society........ Not to mention the South Australian Railways.
Anyway....there was no way I was going to miss this trip.
I can't remember who I travelled with, but we left Melbourne on the 1.40pm Horsham which was always steam hauled beyond Ararat, R717 on this occasion.
At Horsham we spent the time with late and very lamented VR driver Brian Brooke and his family.
I remember that Mrs. Brooke presented us with a delicious fruit cake as we left to catch "The Overland" departing Horsham at 1.00am. We needed it because there was nothing to eat 'til breakfast at Murray Bridge and when you are a teenager your hunger never abates.
The Saturday was profitably spent riding down to the Bay and exploring Mile End Loco and somehow or other several of us managed to infiltrate the Grosvenor Hotel on North Terrace to sleep on the floor of someone's room.
These pictures tell the story of the train trip next day. |
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Inside
Mile End Loco shed, the 500 was steaming up.
|
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First
Glimpse of the 500
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The
Mountain King
|
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500
backing down to Adelaide Station
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500 at
Adelaide Station
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| Australian
cities were always very quiet on a Sunday morning, but I
reckon Adelaide was especially so. The only thing to disturb
the peace was the 9.00am arrival of the "Overland"
from Melbourne. This particular Sunday was an exception
though, a long rake of green and cream cars was docked at
the southernmost platform of the Adelaide Railway Station
and a growing and chattering crowd thronged the surrounds.
They were waiting for engine No 500 to couple to the train.
Many perhaps re-living earlier days when a 500 backed down
from Mile End every night to take the "Overland"
out. Presently wisps of smoke and steam showed off in the
distance and 500's big, black backside approached, rolling
at a very dignified pace. As usual the crowd gathered to
watch the loco nudge gently onto the train, then stood on
tiptoe to peer into the cab with its mysterious gauges and
shining levers.
Train travel, all travel really, used to be exciting, an
adventure. Today, it's a bit like catching a lift. |
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Departure
Time
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The
Overland
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Up
into the Adelaide Hills
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In the
Adelaide Hills
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Mount
Lofty
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Taking
Water
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Interested
Parties
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Mount
Barker
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Watertank,
Mount Barker
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Dining
Car and Chef
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Here
she comes
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Almost
Overpowering
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At the
Seaside
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All
aboard, look a bodgie
with a Rollieflex
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Victor
Harbor
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Our
Guard
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Victor
Harbor Arrival
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Victor
Harbor Departure
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Us Victorians left the train at Mount Barker Junction
on way back and farewelled it with detonators.
Pretty soon most of us were snoozing off in our luxurious reclining seats, could it get any better???
Two 900s up front and air-conditioned comfort.
8.20am arrival at Spencer Street and then straight
off to work! Great memorable trip.
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