Jamestown
was a very busy reducing station for the Belalie North bank right up
till the 3' 6" Narrow Gauge track was closed down from Broken
Hill to Port Pirie after the 9th January 1970 and was
replaced with the new Sydney - Perth Standard Gauge 4' 8½".
This was the death knell
of a fantastic era in South Australian Railway's
history in this Mid North of South Australia, still to
this day. Now all only pleasant memories left for those who
knew and worked on this narrow gauge track.
I regard myself very
fortunate to have been stationed at Jamestown from April 1963, till
May 1970 as a station porter. Jamestown was round the clock
working and a lot of shunting, mostly at night. I witnessed the
narrow gauge come to its final end and the ushering in of
the new and totally different rail era, the new Standard Gauge. It was, a very sad, sad,
sad day and was not a pleasant feeling to see the old 3'
6" narrow
gauge ripped up for those of us who loved the old
S.A.R. It was like a close family member had died. Now all that's
left is only these old pictures and some great Garratt and T
class steam sounds to haunt me from the past on my computer.
Here I can at least, share some of my old ghostly images of
when I was stationed at Jamestown in the 1960's, to come
back for a moment or two to pleasantly haunt us of those
absolute magic
moments of that now long gone South Australian Railway era at
JAMESTOWN.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
First a
couple of old pictures I've come across.
Jamestown yard in those much early days.
(both pics by unknown)
Left picture: The roadway train is over is the main Adelaide -
Orroroo road
The homes to right of engine were the per way homes, long gone. to read more "PRE 1936 INFORMATION"
Map showing Jamestown on the Peterborough
Narrow Gauge Division till 9th January 1970. All UP trains
from Port Pirie to Peterborough had even numbers. (e.g.
274)
All DOWN trains from Peterborough
from Port Pirie had uneven
numbers. (e.g. 275)
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
pic
(a)
pic
(b)
Jamestown Station September
1965
This was my workplace and home from April 1963 to Jan 1970, as the
Station Master (Jack Kelly) had his own private residence in Jamestown township
itself. I was so overjoyed when we shifted to Jamestown and
found out I/we had to live in the Station Master's
residence, it was like old times back when my father was a Station
Master when I was a youngster at various stations he worked as Station
Master and we lived in SM's residence.
It is also called living on the job and I loved it.
Where
you see the Jamestown station sign, (pic a) the window below was the start of the
SM's (Station Master's) residence. That room and next one
this way were bedrooms, then a side gate to
residence from platform. The SM's residence had 3 big bedrooms,
a lounge room with side entrance front door on other
side
of station and a lean-to type
sleep-out this side and a lean-to bathroom other side with a
wood fire chip heater to heat water for bath water and a
galvanised bathtub and hand sink.
Between lean-to
bathroom and kitchen is another side gate entrance
out front of station. The
kitchen area (pic b) can see chimney on flat
roof in above on black and white picture with a long
lean-to to provide weather
cover going from the main building to the kitchen
which was a stone building completely separate from
the main building
with a sink for washing dishes and a firewood heated stove/oven for cooking purposes.
Wood was
plentiful (free) as we had to cut up old narrow gauge railway
sleepers for firewood. Every room had a big fireplace
with high ceilings. Cool in summer, little hard to
heat in winter.
The toilet (can see on back fence near gateway) was a
"pull the chain" with an old dog spike
for a handle and serviced by a septic tank (was only mod con)
just outside the back fence. The a wash-house (laundry)
next to kitchen had a firewood copper for heating
the washing water to
boil washing and a two compartment concrete wash
troughs, one for scrubbing clothes and one for
rinsing water. (my my one good thing the washing machines done away
with that hard hot chore) Both laundry and toilet were
separate from the main
building.
Water for the house was from the big
overhead water tank close by that supplied the steam engines with
water. There
was also a 12 feet deep by about 6 feet wide circular brick lined
underground fresh water well, which was fed from the roof of the station with
an old hand operated crank pump for drinking water. (the
well water was always
very cold water all year round) It
was a very comfortable home with very small back yard. A
wood heap was near laundry to chop up the sleepers for kitchen stove,
the laundry copper and wood chips for heating the bath heater.
(actually those wood chip heaters were a great bath
water heater) Only a small area for
a bit of garden to grow a few veggies and a freestone peach
tree (had lovely fruit too).
Not a lot of work could be done around the backyard. This
for a keen railwayman it was a real train heaven.
Next to SM's residence was the main Station Office, then
a walk through station passage, then the Station Master's
office, a large room for luggage and parcel barrows (it
was
once a refreshment room in its hey day), then a store
room near other end, a ladies waiting room with ladies
toilets inside and the Gents toilets was outside round the far
end of the station building.
Alongside of the station was a subway for pedestrians
to walk under the rail tracks to the main street,
as the Jamestown railway yard was nearly in the center of
Jamestown, as the railway yard actually cut the town in half. The
main Adelaide - Orroroo - Peterborough road crossing
was at the West (Caltowie) end of the rail yards. Another
rail crossing was at the eastern end of railway yards.
Pedestrian
subway
under 5 tracks built June 1908.
Looking north from Goods shed (main street) side opposite the station.
Jamestown yard (not
to scale) layout till 1964
After 1964 the yard was lengthened.
The fouling peg between the UP and DOWN main lines was right
at the edge of the main road crossing itself. With a train
sitting on the DOWN main (to Port Pirie) had
to be on the very edge of the crossing to fit in
clear to allow an UP train (to
Peterborough) to cross it. It use to be quite daunting to road users
seeing the engine(s) (especially at night) sitting
right on the very edge of the main road crossing. No crossing gongs in
those days. Everyone just had to be careful and most were,
not like these days. In my 7 years
there only one crossing accident when a down train
with twin diesels with 1,700 tons was sitting right
on the Xing
waiting to cross the up Brill Passenger Railcar
coming from Port Pirie at 10.05pm. The railcar was
coming up through the small cutting sounding the
horn and hit the road car square
on dead centre and the car was then pushed and slid
up along track with car wheels both sides of the rails, luckily for
quite some
distance. Actually the car being hit dead centre
actually saved the elderly occupants from any serious injuries as no one was hurt, mostly just badly shaken thankfully. If the
car had been just 1 foot further onto the track they would have been crushed between Railcar and the twin
830 diesels.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Jamestown
station looking in an easterly direction.
Jamestown
station looking westerly direction.
Jamestown Station 1966 S.A.R Narrow Gauge.
In picture above can be seen the weigh bridge, crane, goods
shed and
half way down track between railway crossing and station you can also see the per-way gang
shed where the "Casey Jones" quad and trolley
were kept that serviced the Jamestown track area. There were 7 employees in
the per-way gang. A head ganger and 6 packers. In the background on other side of station is the main
Adelaide - Orroroo road and Jamestown Bowling Club.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Yard from SM's residence March
1968
Jamestown
Silos & weighbridge 1964
Here can be seen the old bagged wheat sheds and an iced cool car
for milk sent to Broken Hill Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
Picture taken
from roof of the station house. My bird cages and freestone Peach tree, the
fruit was first class too.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Jamestown Station
office & parcel area 1965.
Ticket office at left behind me.
Terry
Faulkner Parcel & Ticket Clerk 1965.
Ticket office to the right.
Strange,
I never took a picture of the small ticket office case and
parcel storage area.
Tickets were accessed normally from front of station, though
in my time most folk would come into the parcels office.
The station office
did need some painting as it had seen far better days.
Above
picture
left: On left side of picture are two Electric
Staff instruments, also just to right of staff instruments is the Party
line phone
where you can lift receiver and if anyone talking along
the line you can hear everything that is said, also they
can hear you while receiver is off the hook as it's a two way
party line. The party phone was used to
contact another station, you lift receiver and if no one on
the line, then hang up, spin handle while pressing a
button and ring a station code like, long
- short - long (bit like morse code but not as
complicated)
When I first went to Jamestown in 1963 there was a
Telegraph key board (morse code) till around early 1965
that sat on that table alongside the Electric staff
instruments, but only the Station Master "Jack Kelly" knew
how the use it proper. He was an old school Station
Master.
On the right side
of above picture was the Peterborough "Train Control"
phone (can just see edge of it in picture).
Again you could hear
everything going on the Train Control Phone, only Train
Control could not hear you without the speak button
held down. To speak to Train Control you had to lift receiver
listen and wait
till no one was speaking, then pull and hold down the speak
switch, then call
out your station name e.g. "Jamestown" lift
finger off speak switch to hear Train Control. When he called
out your station
name, then hold the switch down again then talk. One was not suppose to listen (earwig) in on the TC phone
unless actually using it, but it was interesting and often
entertaining to earwig at times
when things were quiet especially at night to hear
what was going on all along the line from Cockburn to
Pirie, to Terowie, also the Quorn and Wilmington lines at various
times.
Train Control there was two Train Control boards. The
Pirie board and the Cockburn board. The Assistant Train
Controllers would work the Pirie Board from about 6am till
around 11pm. A Train Controller (boss) would work the
Cockburn, Terowie and Quorn board and they would then take over both TC boards at
11pm till about 6am when the Assistant Train Controllers
took back over the Pirie, Wilmington board. So during the day
and afternoon on the Pirie line one could ONLY hear what
was going on from Peterborough to Pirie and up to
Wilmington. At night (after 11pm) one could hear everything all
over the Peterborough division Terowie to Cockburn, to
Quorn, to Wimington and to Port Pirie. Kept one in the
know though. (grinning)
Alongside the Train Control phone can be seen the Train
Order clip where
the original train order copies were kept filed. Train orders
were written out in triplicate using two pieces of double
faced carbon paper. The top original copy we kept on file,
the second copy was for the engine crew and third copy
for the Guard.
The Phone on left wall was a "party line" phone, then also to the left can be seen two electric staff instruments sitting on what looks like
high wooden boxes. The furtherest one was the "Jamestown - Belalie North" electric staff instrument.
The
"Jamestown - Belalie North" section and later
it then
became "Jamestown - Yongala" section when
Belalie North was closed down as a crossing station.
Alongside the Belalie North staff instrument was the "Jamestown - Caltowie" section
electric staff instrument. Only one staff could be withdrawn from
the staff instrument at any
one time and then, only with permission from the Train Controller
at Peterborough. These duralumin staffs
were placed into a cane hoop (see hoops hanging on side of
instrument box) and were handed to the engine crew for
the safe
working in each section. Electric
staffs were used in conjunction with Train Orders as well.
When a staff instrument got low on staffs, when more trains
went in one direction, an electrical fitter did what was
called a "staff balance" by unlocking the
instrument and taking out the extra staffs, record them in
staff register book and then take
them to the other staff section instrument and put them in.
The electrical fitter was only person ever allowed to unlock
a staff instrument and another employee had to double check
staff numbers as they went in and then sign in staff register book that they
were all present and correct. This all in the name of
train working safety. Was a very good system, as the driver then
knew once he had the correct staff for the section he then had
the right of way to that section. No "head
on" calamities. Puts him in the clear.
The room the other side of that Train Control phone and
office fire place was our lounge room. Actually one
could hear the Train Control Phone ring sitting in the lounge
room. (was handy) Cannot get
closer to the job than that. Just 60 seconds and I was on the job,
out of the station house front door and into station office door and book on.
The fireplace in the office on afternoon and night shifts in winter we use to cut a
narrow gauge sleeper in half (cross ways) and poke
the two halves up the chimney alongside each other in the open fireplace. Once they got well going that would keep the
office warm the whole late afternoon and night shift on very cold
and freezing frosty nights. The office would also be so warm that when we would get 2 or 3
trains in yard at once, it was darn hard to get the engine crews
and guards back
out onto their
trains. One could not blame them as we had plenty of severe "Jack Frosts" at
Jamestown. Yongala was just up the road towards Peterborough and was
well known to be
the coldest place in South Australia.
It snowed just out of Jamestown towards Belalie North twice
in the 7 years while I was there, once as seen in the pictures below.
Was pretty sight as I'd never seen snow before.
Pictures
above were taken
out towards Belalie North.
Actually it was the day after the Americans landed on the
moon.
My car was a 1956 Ford V8 Customline, they made nice cars back
then.
Petrol was cheap in comparison to today's rip-off.
On this train order it
states to the Engineman and Guard of 108 goods, engine 860 which is
heading to Peterborough to take the Main line at Yongala and cross 185
passenger Railcar car number 104 which will be, or will take the Passing
siding at Yongala.
Note also this train order I
wrote out was issued at 4:41am and it was about an hour to
travel to Yongala. So that got 108 goods into Yongala around 5:45am
which if the passenger railcar was on time that day, it was delayed
a bit. A train controller's nightmare
was delaying a passenger
train too much.
Here on
this train order it states to the
Engineman and Guard of 554 roadside goods,
engine 402 (Garratt) sitting at
Jamestown which is heading to Peterborough
to take the Passing Siding at Yongala and
to cross 107 Goods (an ore train to
Port Pirie) engine 860 (830 class
Diesel) which will be, or, will take
the Main line at Yongala. The fact
554 goods (Roadside train) is taking the Passing siding on this
order, one could well bet 107 goods would
possibly get a green light to run
through Yongala.
Remember
on Electric Staff territory, the Electric Staff is what controls the section, NOT
the Train Order.
The Train Order on Electric
Staff Territory are only instructions given for a cross at an unattended
station and other train
working instructions that might need to take place in a section. (worked very
well) Yongala and Caltowie were both
unattended stations that were closed down in around the mid 1960's and
both made unattended
electric staff stations.
A
demonstration above showing the
correct way
of changing an electric staff on the fly.
BUT a lot of times
in reality, the loco crew would drop his staff on the ground
at your feet and take yours on the fly. Reason is if the train is doing
some speed and your standing on the ground and you do not receive and move with the
train momentum to received staff properly, the staff would slew up and around
your arm and KO you in the back of your head big time. Not a
nice feeling. Seen
this happen in particular when working on Red Hens a few times at Albert Park on the
UP from Grange during crosses in 1962. One fellow
it even knocked him out
cold on the platform.
SPECIAL
NOTE:
These exact same type of Train Orders were also used on
Train Order Territory. That is, where only the Train Order
itself governs train movements through the sections. Electric Staffs were excellent where there was a lot of
frequent or high volume of train working going on, like in the
early steam days. (40 trains a day)
But
on tracks where very few trains were used, (no staff
instruments) then only a Train
Order Working was used. On Train Order territory when issuing and
repeating back a Train Order, all numbers and station names had
to be spelt out, whereas a train orders on Electric staff
territory was only repeated back, no spelling of stations and
numbers were needed, unless actual Train Order working had
been instituted because of staff instrument failures, but this was a very rare occurrence,
well on the Peterborough - Pirie line anyway.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Jamestown Yard looking West towards Caltowie
1964.
Here can be seen
to the other end of
railway yard, also the old railway
dams for water once used for steam engines, also some wheat loading
at silo.
The 4 cell silo had not been long built then. Can still see the start of the old bagged
wheat sheds to left of picture. This
picture was taken atop of the high Belalie North absolute "Home"
yard entrance signal.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Belalie
North end of Jamestown yard with the cheeseknob interlocked switches and
signal levers.
Here we
are looking at first entrance switches which was a "cheese knob" switch, pinned and set for the
DOWN main line with 2 signal levers for a Home and Distant
signals which are shown here both pulled off ready
for an arrival of a train coming from Belalie North. Note
the track (down main) these switches are set for has a much brownish
look track, it is actually rust
from off the cast iron brake blocks.
When the trains come into Jamestown from Belalie North the grade
control valves are in the up HP position, (meaning all the brakes are slightly held on all the time
to help engineman to control his train) and when a train came in you
could often see
at times molten cast globules dripping from the cast iron brake blocks,
as there was that much heat generated in the braking coming down the steep Belalie
Bank on fully loaded ore trains. On
sunny days when train came in and all trains had to stop to re-adjust the grade
control valves, you could see in the air a lot of silver glittering flecks of steel flying
around everywhere. This the reason this down track has that rusty look about
it, as it was the settled steel particles gone rusty. Most railwaymen's
eyes over the years when we look up at the sky, one can see small specks
everywhere, this is the slight scarring on the eyeball from over the years of those little
slivers of steel from off the old cast iron brake blocks.
The next track over was called the UP main line, where a high switch stand is showing that it is a main line. That was
a late addition when yard was extended right to the main Adelaide -
Orroroo road crossing.
The signal lever on the left is for the "Distant" permissive signal which was some
over a half mile away up the track. (see next picture further down) and the next lever
alongside was for the "Home" absolute signal about where I
took that picture.
To pull these lower quadrant signals off, first you had to make sure the
switches were set and pinned for the down main line, as the
interlocking would not allow you to pull the signals off. Then you had to put
your foot on left signal chain wheel to help take the slack out of the
long wire from all way out to distant signal, then pull the lever quickly to pull
(jerk) the distant signal
off. There was bit of a knack in doing that. The "Distant" permissive signal was
pulled first, then the "Home" absolute signal could
be pulled to the off position for train to enter the yard without
stopping.
Originally
when I first came to Jamestown in 1963 all switches throughout the
yard were cheese knobs. (back breakers) a little later all the main line
cheese knob switches were changed over to the high Switch stands with kerosene
lamps on top of them and coloured display panels by day, this was far easier to see if switches were correctly set from a distance
day or night.
Jamestown was unusual setup in as much concerning this entrance cheese knob switch, as normally all main line switches were converted to
Switch stands, but for some unexplainable reason this particular
interlocked cheese knob
switch was still used here only on this "down main" facing
switch till final closure of the Narrow gauge in 1970. Cheese knob switches were still used throughout the rest
of the station yard.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
All
taken
from atop the "Absolute Home" signal Belalie North end of
yard 1967.
274 with twin 830 class diesels
getting a "run through" the yard on Up main on a
late Saturday afternoon,
and
passes under me about to head up the Belalie North bank with empty ore
(autos) and cattle wagons (hook) on the rear behind the autos. (centre
picture) At left side of engines can be seen the signal levers and cheese-knob
and
on right side of engines the railway pushbike lying in the grass
near sheep ramp.
Great view from top of "Home" signal.
Here in the distance you can just see the high "Distant" signal,
also the track up into Riddles Vacuum Oil depot.
Sheep yards in foreground and
Cattle sale yards just over the roadway.
The good old Guards Brake on
rear of train with marker lamps.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
The "distant permissive" signal
coming into Jamestown from Belalie North.
The very high "distant permissive" signal
View
atop
of the "distant permissive" signal
The signal
light was only about a third of the way up the mast, was too hairy
(very scary) having to climb to top as it was so high with a kerosene can to fill signals and clean
wicks twice a week. The "home absolute" was bad enough. With the
signal arm itself so high up it was much easier to see signal above the background from
further back up the hill as the train came around the curve
from Belalie North.
If
you look carefully in larger picture you can just see a white
speak above 3rd telephone pole that is the Absolute HOME signal.
Now you see why it was so high up as well with that white
slatted background.
This is a 1 in 60 grade. All ore wagons had Grade Control
Valves fitted to assist with helping to keep control the speed
of the train while coming down from Belalie North, so plenty
of warning was needed for trains entering the Jamestown
station yard.
A
train to have a brake failure down here from Belalie North
would be a big tragic mess. Reason why the down main switches were
always set for down main as to protect any train that may be
sitting on the up main at the water column. Any shunt movements with up trains had
to in clear of down main at least 10 minutes before expected arrival of a
down train.
This picture cropped from bigger picture
To view
what the Lower Quadrant signals and lamps look like close
up:-
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Jamestown
Yard looking towards Belalie North
1964.
Before yard lengthening. Note
crossovers
between up & down Main lines & 3rd road.
1966.
Crossovers been removed
between Main lines & 3rd road.
1969. (new
standard
gauge track to left)
The beginning of the end of NG
The roads from left to
right were, Turntable road, Cattle road, Sheep
road, DOWN main, UP main, 3rd road
(reducing road),
4th road, the straight (you can see several
wagons on it, one the Broken Hill milk van) and wheat siding, which continued on
up over the top road crossing into the Vacuum oil Company for
rail fuel tankers.
Turntable, water tower, water column
and ash pit. Also can be seen in picture is a silver bogie
iced cool car wagon with X's, (one drop door) Y's,
(2 drop doors) and a YY all 4
wheel trucks next to it. This iced cool car wagon was loaded with
tetra paks of milk for Broken Hill, bought by road from the Clare
Golden North Dairies some 74 klms south of Jamestown. The milk would be
loaded Monday, Wednesday and Fridays
and picked up on 274 goods marshalled behind the empty ore wagons around 1:30pm to Peterborough,
thence onto Broken Hill.
Jamestown yard was unusual in as much it had an UP and a DOWN main line which were both
interlocked with the switches and lower quadrant signals at each end
of the yard and it was a pushbike job from one end of the yard to
the other to set-up the switches and signals for trains to enter the
yard. By the way signals could not be pulled off at both ends
at same time. Only one train at a time could be admitted
into yard.
The track nearest the sheep vans was the DOWN main, the
next line over where water column and ash pit is, was the UP main. The next line over
was the 3rd road for reducing loading because of the
Belalie North bank. In this picture I would say the 3rd road in the
1964 picture had
just been cleared out earlier in the morning as usually there was
nearly always reduced loading on it, mostly "on" empty ore wagons and/or
"Y" (2 drop doors) pyrites empties. Nearly all up steam trains reduced loading at
Jamestown. Periodically a light engine and guards van would come from Peterborough and would clear
out any excess loading.
Once the twin diesels came fully
online, very rarely was any loading reduced at Jamestown.
W.T.T. 239 of Sunday 12th November 1967 (auto
couplers had been fitted to the Garratts)
1
x 830
2
x 830
400
Garratt
Tclass
UP
Tons
Tons
Tons
Tons
Port Pirie.
1000
2000
1050
378
Crystal Brook.
835
1670
835
365
Huddleston.
1270
2400
835
378
Gladstone.
750
1500
850
365
Caltowie.
950
1900
950
378
Jamestown.
530
1060
600
270
Belalie North.
1000
2000
600
380
Yongala.
1000
2000
600
380
Peterborough.
-
-
-
-
DOWN
Peterborough.
2100
2400
900
526
Yongala.
875
1750
900
410
Belalie North.
1750
2400
1750
1100
Port Pirie. No tonnage changes en Route
Note:-Down
goods trains must stop at Belalie North to adjust
Grade Control Valves
When
only HOOK couplers were used on the narrow gauge
Peterborough to Belalie North loads were:-
T
+ 400 1100 tons,
2 x T's 820 tons.
The
load for everything from Belalie North to Port Pirie was
1100 tons.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
NARROW
GAUGE HOOK TO AUTOMATIC COUPLERS
(Delivery
of first 830's)
ADAPTERS
Here shows how
hook couplings were coupled to automatic couplings.
Now
you see why all hook loading was behind auto couplings. Also it was
a real juggling job to get hook drag pin out and back in
again, as at times the drag pin would get burred over and a
pickaxe from off the engine was needed, which was usually a
long walk of some equal 60 wagons plus up to the engine, get the
pickaxe from off the front of engine and return, meanwhile the clock
is ticking against you all the time. So at times you were
running.
Also while fitting an adapter you had to be very careful that
the engine driver not releases the train air brakes and
the ore wagons with roller bearing wagons do not start to gently
quietly roll back
onto you as you had your back to the auto coupling.
This was scary stuff as a few employees had been caught this
way, one I knew was killed. Roller bearing wagons were very
hard to hear when starting to roll, especially loaded with
ore, no creaking or groaning sounds. Realise too, this was all done
mostly during the night with only a kerosene hand signal
lamp as the only form of lighting. Was great fun, worse part
was you would usually have the "Train Controller"
on the phone wanting you to hurry up to get that train out
quick to make a cross elsewhere. So was some pressure
and fun for one
and all. A crook hook drag pin could very well make, or
break your shift from relatively easy night, to a real
absolute near nightmare. On stations like Jamestown you were
literally on your own, with some help at times from the
guard. You needed to be well organised for the whole shift,
thinking ahead and yes most important, leave nothing to chance.
Grade
Control Valves
These were used
on bogie ore wagons from Belalie North to Port Pirie.
Click picture to see
the enlarged picture with
grade valve information.
On
the Peterborough Narrow Gauge Division of the South
Australia Railways we used Grade Control Valves which
were fitted to most bogie wagons. Also there was a lot of
four wheeled wagons, these were not fitted with these Grade control
valves. Four wheeled vehicles which
were always marshalled at rear of train behind the automatic couplings and going down
the Belalie North steep grade the amount of four wheel
wagons on any train was governed by how many bogie wagons were
fitted with these Grade Control Valves.
When a train arrived at Belalie North from
Peterborough The guard and fireman would walk along the train and set these
grade control valves to the HP position (handle pointing
up see picture above)
on all these bogie wagons mostly ore wagons from Broken
Hill, with silver, lead and zinc concentrates for the smelters at Port
Pirie.
When the train descended this steep Belalie grade, the first
train brake application was made the train brakes would
apply, but as soon as the train brakes were released, 7lb psi
of air would be retained, so all the brakes were
slightly on all the time coming down the hill, this was to assist the
driver to recharge the air and so he does not run out of air and end up with
a runaway train. From Belalie North to Port Pirie it was all
down hill, with exception of a couple of places.
When a freight train arrived at Jamestown from Belalie North, the
train would always stop and the guard and station staff would
then turn
all the Grade Control Valve handles into the horizontal or IP
position. In the horizontal IP position it took extra time for brakes
to release
completely, again to give engineman time to recharge the
braking system. 10 minutes was allowed for this job to be done. The
GCV's would stay like this
all the way to Port Pirie.
Here
is an event that actually happened. Nothing to do with above GCV's
but to show just how very
important air tests on trains were and still is today.
This
happened a couple of months before I came to Jamestown in
1963.
A "T" class steam engine with a full load of 1,100 tons from Peterborough over Belalie North
(Belalie waswhere the Garratt would have been
taken off train) stopped at Jamestown on the down
main to do the normal adjustments of the GCV's (Grade
Control Valves). After the GCV's were adjusted, the
driver decided he needed take on some water as Gladstone
was the next usual watering hole for steamers. Taking water on the down
main at
Jamestown was not a normally done thing account the Belalie
bank started about the watering column area. The station porter closed
both the air
taps on the engine tender and the ore wagon and then uncoupled the air
hose. A normal procedure
would be to release some air out of the rear train loading, so brakes
would be at
least slightly applied to prevent the train loading from possibly running away, also
apply some hand brakes. Though applying hand brakes be rarely done as
the actual bottom end of the Jamestown station yard was relatively level
area be hard normally to move wagons. Taking water usually
was less than 10 minutes anyway.
The engine was piloted over onto the up main to the water
column. Normally 99.99% of the time on the NG there are always
with any train consist be small air leaks on wagons on near every
train and usually after a short while the brakes would then
automatically leak on and apply brakes by themselves, but this
train's loading held its air perfectly apparently.
The
engine was bought back onto the train and the air hoses were coupled up and
the engine tender's air cock opened, but in the rush to get
the train going the air cock on the train's
loading was forgotten. (left closed) Probable reason, but this is no
excuse, was because there was usually ALWAYS an urgent hurry to
get trains out the yards as quickly as possible because of
crosses (often very tight crosses) further down the track. Train Control would at times could
innocently put a lot of pressure on train and station staff to meet their tight crosses, as
controllers too had to explain train delays to the Superintendent, or
those above as to the why's and the what for's in train
delays. There
is a lot
more to train working than met the eye in those days.
The
driver whistles to the guard to say we are ready to go, he's got the
correct staff
and the guard waves the flag to give right of way. Now a chain of
events is about to happen very soon. The train pulls out the
yard okay and there is no hint of any problems, heads out over the main
Adelaide - Orroroo road crossing at
end of yard and down the hill
that leads up into Jamestown yard. Train now picking up some speed down the hill and usually the train
only gets up to track speed at the bottom of the incline and train
then
has now gathered enough speed to get the train up and over Slattery's hill.
Still no hint of anything
is amiss. Over the
hill and then it was all downhill for some 5 miles into Caltowie
yard and beyond, fortunately not
as steep as Belalie bank of course. The train now starting to
pick up some extra speed as the loading starts pushing the
engine. The driver then applies some braking to keep check the train's speed and suddenly the full realization hits
home. Hell,,,, we have no train brake air, as now there is
nothing to slow the train down now as the engine's air brakes
are the only brakes
and there is no way that the engine's brakes going down hill
would slow or stop an 1100 ton train now gathering some momentum.
Now things start to get bit scary.
The
Fireman now panicing and wants to jump off, but driver
says, "hang in there and stay with the train".
The engineman realising what must have happened, (the air
tap was not open) starts whistling madly to the Guard to attract
his attention and hopefully to get him to pull the air tap in his Brake
Van. This would have saved the day and the big trouble they
all got into afterwards. Well the Guard hangs out his GB to see
what all the whistling is about and sees the driver waving madly
and he just waves back, apparently thinking they are just larking
around. With that, the driver says to his Fireman,
"Look, stay with the engine while I climb back over the
tender onto the ore trucks and start winding on some hand brakes,
we got to try and stop this before Caltowie". Climbing
over the ore wagons is easy enough thing to do, but to try
and climb down between the rear of the engine's tender and the
auto coupling ore wagon to
try to open the air cock on the ore wagon itself would have been very near suicidal to even
try, as
the straight air cocks on the ore wagons were back under the ore wagon a
little way and very difficult to get at from above, not like the modern
air taps of today
as they are at the very end
of wagon. Note: If the couplings had been hook
couplings with the old side chains, then it could be done
very easy, but not with auto
couplings with no side chains.
So
while the driver was frantically climbing over ore wagons winding
hand brakes full on, the Fireman sees a farmer
plowing his paddock right alongside the track and screams out
and waves madly to him yelling "We cannot stop", "We
cannot stop" What the farmer could have done is still a
mystery to me. Well, normally it was to be a cross at Caltowie
with the Brill Railcar, but a little luck now. The railcar
was running bit late and now the cross was to take place at Yanga, a
siding station towards Gladstone.
The Caltowie Station Master was standing out on station platform with the electric
staff and a train order in hand ready with a green flag for a "run through" to
cross that railcar at Yanga. As the train went past him,
the fireman was frantically screaming out, "We
cannot stop", "We
cannot stop" The S.M. open mouthed, wonders what's going on and next thing
he sees the driver hanging on the side of an ore wagon still furiously winding hand
brake on
and the driver yelled out to the Station Master as he went past,
"Tell the Guard to pull the air", "Tell the
Guard to pull the air"
As the GB (Guards Brake) approached the S.M. the guard was leaning out ready to grab the Train
Order and the SM yells, "PULL THE AIR QUICK, the
driver says he cannot stop the train". With that, the
guard instantly pulls the air and all the brakes came on and
the train finally comes to a stop half way
out the other end of the Caltowie yard. So all ended
well in that respect, except the "T" class engine was a bit worse
off for wear, as the drive rods were a mess from having engine
wheels in
reverse at times trying to help slow the train.
So,
now one can see what CAN happen if ever you uncouple a
train, just make 100% sure you DO an air test BEFORE departure, meaning the guard stands at his Guards Brake
checks the air pressure in his GB and then gets the driver to apply
brakes to see and hear the brakes go on and then
to release the brakes to be 100% sure the air brakes are in working
order right up to his GB. Standing
instructions anyway were that on every train where the train has
been uncouple, a least a continuity air test MUST be
done. The guard and driver did not do this before the Jamestown departure, so, the Guard was put back
portering, the Fireman
put back as a cleaner and Driver put back as a fireman for
a period of time. A considerable loss of pay
especially in those days as railway pay was not the best at
anytime.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Jamestown Yard entrance
looking east towards Belalie North end of yard.
The road crossing is the Adelaide to
Orroroo - Peterborough highway. Picture was taken from top of Caltowie
"Home" signal. Note
the rodding to both these switch stand switches as both these
switches were interlocked with signal levers near road crossing. (like
a miniature open air signal cabin) The switches you see are set
at present for "Down main" for a train to leave Jamestown
yard for Caltowie later on. The Signal levers (also had an annex key
that locked the signal levers in the stop position to get the derail
off for the 3rd or 4th roads) for the Caltowie entrance signals.
We would have to set the road (switches) first, then go back to
crossing to pull the "Distant" signal off first,
then the "Home" signal. Then a train from Caltowie would
come straight into the yard. (the railway term for signal, was
"stick")
If
sticks were off, (45 deg) then the Garratts and T's would come
straight into yard and pull up to water column and start taking on
water. Once the 830 class diesels appeared, quite often the up
trains would
get a "run through" (green flag by day and green hand
light by night) exchange the electric staff on the fly, then it was
full bore through and out the yard for the run up to the Belalie
bank. On a "run through" you better be sure the
switches are set correctly at the Belalie North end of yard, or there
would be a pair of smashed up interlocked switches as the freight
train could not stop in time if found not set correctly. Bust a pair
of these switches one was in serious trouble usually was "a caution" placed
on your record, so one always double checked all
the time.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Johnny walking the yard setting up for train in 1964.
274 Garratt on wet day just finished taking water. 1964
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
From
top of wheat silos looking west towards Slattery's Hill (top left in picture)
then onto Caltowie
Building at
bottom of picture is top of Jamestown freight shed.
At end of that dead end was the
pedestrian path that goes through a subway under the yard rail
tracks. You can just see the path that leads to the subway. The
vacant block other side of pathway use to have run down
per-way houses from early days, but were all bulldozed down
and removed when the Housing trust built new prefab homes in
Jamestown in the 50's well before I came there. An
"X" single door four wheel wagon can be seen in
the subway dead end, just off the Goods shed road.
This dead end was mostly
used to unload Mallee Roots and also for the Baby Health
Car's monthly baby visit.
A pedestrian subway dead end track was also used for the railway "Baby Health
Car" when it visited Jamestown doing its regular
rounds. The Mothers and Babies Health Car was very well patronised
by
the local Mums in
those early
1960's days.
The Baby Health Car was a converted 50ft lavatory car
(semi-corridor) according to the line drawing. It was manned
by a Sister Murphy who was qualified to tell the mums up the
track how to rear their children. Last known whereabouts of
this car was at Oodla Wirra where it was on blocks adjacent
to the track, but it has long gone from there.
The
Baby
Health Car No2 ready to depart Peterborough
12th June 1966. This
photo courtesy of John Phillips.
The
Baby
Health Car No2 Peterborough. This
photo courtesy of Jack.
From
top of "Home" entrance absolute signal looking towards Caltowie 1964.
There were 2 dams, neither dams were used back then as Jamestown was
on the Morgan - Whyalla pipeline.
Note
the railway dams and pump house near trees, there were two
dams that were once used for supplying water for the steam
engines. Once the Murray River pipeline water came to
Jamestown these dams were made redundant. When the Standard
Gauge earthworks came along these dams were filled in and
the Standard gauge track was built right through the very
middle of them. In the distance the hill to right of tree
was called Slattery's hill on other side was all downhill
into Caltowie. NOTE:Amount
of water held in each dam.
Jamestown No 1 dam: 17' 2" =
8,385,000 gallons.
Jamestown No 2 dam: 17' 0" =
3,720,000 gallons.
*20' 11" 5,614,000 gallons.
*Above 17 ft the capacity includes water in the channel
between dams.
Here
you can see "Home" entrance signal in this derailment in
1969.
Also in left picture the new Sydney - Perth Standard Gauge track.
In this shot
note the two dams are now filled in and the Standard Gauge earth works.
1969.
Derailment story......
On the Peterborough Narrow Gauge Division, all trains the automatic
couplings were up next to engine and all hook loading was behind the
Auto couplings with use of an adapter. See
adapters.
So only ore bogie wagons were up front and all other hook
rollingstock was on rear of all trains. This always meant shunting
with huge strings up hill out around curves. Pushing back with big
strings downhill into the station yard could be a very hairy
experience if engineman and shunter were not being very attentive,
meaning, right on the ball exactly.
This day the station porter decided to shunt from the rear of the
train. I always preferred to pull the big strings from front (was
quicker, but as I said was much more hairy with big tonnage)
Anyway, the Garratt was run around and an adapter used to couple to
GB to pick up 5 loaded Hoppers in No3 road that had been reduced
from off a previous up train. The consist was Engine, GB, empty
Pyrites "Y" (4) wheel empties, at this point no problem,
till they picked up the loaded hoppers off No 3 and reversed out
over the crossing and down the Caltowie hill and the engineman made
a VERY bad mistake.
He used the engine brake and not the train brake and of course
with all those empty (5.7 ton) wagons in the middle with Garratt
engine with full brakes on and with 5 loaded hoppers pushing, (no
brakes applied) the "Y's" just rose up off the
track spilling the Y trucks both sides of the track.
As I said could easily happen to anyone not thinking. BTW that
Garratt in picture was from next down train to help re-rail it all.
The "Y's" that could not be easily re-railed were pushed
over and retrieved later. Did not take long to clear the track. No
track damage.
NARROW
GAUGE WORKING TIME TABLE STEAM DAYS August
27th 1961 (Belalie
North Days)
DOWN
PETERBOROUGH AND PORT PIRIE LINE
UP
PORT PIRIE AND PETERBOROUGH LINE
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Fireman on
Garratt 409
taking water on down main behind 275.
NOTE: 409
is now a static display at the National Rail Museum
at Port Adelaide.
to
see her at National Rail Museum.
Normally
the Garratt
was detached, took loco and returned light engine to Peterborough.
On this particular day because of derailment down the track all the
ore loading was parked on sheep siding.
The Garratt is now on other end of the Guards Brake nearly ready to return
to Peterborough.
In
steam days till about 1964 (before 830 diesels started to
take over) ore trains would work into Jamestown double
headed as a "T" and Garratt. The "T" was
always leading and would stop short of stock siding -
turntable and detach the "T" towards turntable.
Once the Garratt left for Port Pirie, the "T"
would be turned, take loco (water etc) and if no up
train to attach it to from Pt Pirie, it would return light
engine to Peterborough. Often we would remove the
Garratt and the "T" by itself would pull the loading onto
Port Pirie. The Garratt returned light engine. Jamestown
was a reducing station for Belalie Bank, reason it was a
busy place for train working.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
This day
was a very special day
NOTE: 402
at right is now a static display at the Zig Zag Railway.
Lithgow, N.S.W.
to view 402 at Zig Zag Railway. Nov 2004.
All 400 class Garratts were cut up with exception of 402 and
409.
Beyer
Garratts 400 class
Here
Garratt 402 (now light engine) sitting on DOWN main was taken off a previous down
train 275 and a "T" class engine took the train onto
Port Pirie. Garratt 401 on train 274 sitting on UP main has just
come from Port Pirie heading onto Peterborough and has just
finished taking water.
Here below is the story about what happened with these two Garratts after
the above
picture was taken.
The first coupling and working of two Bayer Garratts
was at Jamestown.
I often to wonder why two Garratts could not be
coupled and worked together and this bought about it actually
happening. At Jamestown we would often detach a Garratt from a down
train that had helped a "T" class (the "T" always headed
first) to pull loading over the Belalie Bank into Jamestown
and the Garratt would after detaching return light engine
back to Peterborough. All UP trains had preference over any light
engines and they would have to wait till the UP freight cleared the
Jamestown - Yongala (1 hour) section. When the Garratts were
sitting there side by side and I wondered why they could not
be coupled together, as I could see no visual reason as to why
not.
This
particular day in the late 60's we had taken a Garratt 402 off 275
Down train, the "T" class took the train onto Port Pirie
on its own. The Garratt took water on down main as 274 UP train (from Pirie)
its arrival was not that far away, so normally had to stay at
Jamestown till 274 cleared the 1 hour Jamestown - Yongala section.
274 arrived with Garratt 401 and took water and both Garratts were
sitting side by side, as in the picture above. There was another DOWN
(extra) train on its way over from Yongala still some 45 minutes
away, so 274 and the light engine had to wait for the cross.
Normally the Garratt on down main would have been shifted over onto
the 3rd road to clear the up and down main. I was talking to the
drivers of both engines about coupling the two Garratts
together and was told that two Garratts cannot be coupled together,
as it has something to do with the cow catchers and air hoses, they
said. So I asked, "has this ever been actually tried out
before", the answer was, "no, not to their
knowledge".
After some more
discussion finally I convinced the drivers of the light engine and
of 274 maybe we could at least
give this a try, as we had plenty of time till the extra down
train's arrival, even they had to admit they could not see why not.
The engineman of the light engine said, "okay, we will give it
a go and see if it can be done". So we coupled 402 to 401
together and immediately one could see it looked
okay. The driver of the light engine then pulled forward to stretch the
couplings to limit to see and sure enough it was fine, then reversed back
hard to squeeze the couplings up tight and "bingo" still
no problem. Only slight difference was that the air hoses rested a
little on the cow catchers, but no problem.
I then
asked both crews if I speak to Train Control and if I can get
permission would you take the train out and of course was told by
the crews that permission from the Loco Forman was needed, not the Train
Controller, so I jumped on my old trusty railway pushbike headed
back to the station like there was no tomorrow, spoke to Train
Control about this and he said "You cannot couple two Garratts
together" Well, I said, "we have got both engines already
coupled together now". Oh! he said, "well hang on, I'll
ring the Loco Forman". I heard control telling the Loco Foreman
what I said and his immediate reaction was "You cannot couple
two Garratts together" I interrupted and said, "but we
have them already coupled together right now and both crews say
they are quite happy about this". The loco Forman then said,
"go get the drivers to speak to me will you" At that I
jumped on the pushbike and took off like a rocket back up to the
engines and both engineman walked actually quite quickly for
drivers to the station and both spoke to the Loco Foreman and
the Loco Foreman then told them, "Okay, if your both happy
about this, then is okay to bring them back working together".
Well, the drivers and I were all excited about this
happening, (a first) and after the down train came in and
changed the electric staff over and I took the Yongala
staff up and gave it to the leading engineman. The most
spectacular sight was soon to unleashed and beheld, Twin Garratts roaring out the
Jamestown yard straight off the pit heading up the notorious Belalie
bank, that was the fastest I ever saw an UP train leave the
yard with not one, but, two GARRATTS heading out the Jamestown
yard, with the guard was hanging onto his hat for dear life and was
actually laughing as his guard's van literally whizzed past.
Man that was one incredible sight and SOUND and only I got pictures
of it, though only on a "mickey mouse" camera, but it was
a picture anyway.
Explanation
why this twin GARRATT working never happened before
When the 400 class Garratts were first in service in 1953
they had hook couplings and side chains and could not be
coupled together because of the cow catchers and air hoses, but
later around 1962 the Garratts were converted over to automatic
couplings as was all the ore bogie wagons.
For some reason, no one had ever tried (or had no
reason to try it) to couple and
work two Garratts together. Probably because before Belalie
North station was closed down for good and the section now became
Yongala - Jamestown. A Garratt would be detached at Belalie
North and it would then return light engine to Peterborough, as their
was no need to ever double head engines from Belalie North downhill
back into Peterborough.
But from Jamestown to Peterborough this
was entirely different a thing altogether as Jamestown being a reducing
station with often having reduced loading sitting on the 3rd Road,
now with the twin Garratts can easily take any spare loading up over
Belalie North to Peterborough, no reducing anymore.
In the mid 60's that section Yongala - Belalie North
had now became Yongala -
Jamestown, now a 1 hour section instead of two sections of near
30 minutes. This at times often left a "T" or a Garratt engine
sitting at Jamestown after pulling a full load over Belalie North.
Jamestown was in right position now for this twin Garratt working situation
to happen over Belalie North back into Peterborough.
Also in mid to late 60's the 830 class diesels were doing most of the work
while the standard gauge was being built and then the 830's were
slowly being withdrawn from off the narrow gauge and the Beyer
Garratts were now being bought back into service doing the full
train working
again. This was done right up till the very end of the narrow gauge over a
year away in 1970.
Often we had three 830's work out of
Jamestown back over Belalie to Peterborough, so there was never any
reducing done then. Engine changes with the 830 diesels still
took place with most down trains at Jamestown or Caltowie,
occasionally Gladstone. Twins that worked from Peterborough over Belalie
to or through Jamestown were taken
off down trains and placed on the Up train to take all loading
back over Belalie North to Peterborough.
Here
are the pictures of the first time double headed Garratts
leaving Jamestown for Peterborough.
Garratt Action: 402 leading and 401
ready to depart Jamestown for Peterborough in 1968.
Here is first time
ever, twin Garratts were put together and worked out of
Jamestown back to Peterborough. This was done a few times
afterwards, but only out of Jamestown. So this picture above is
first time double heading SAR Garratts were used. Only other time twin
Garratts (400 and 401) worked together was on the last through trip by
Garratts from Port Pirie to Peterborough both travelling in reverse on 554 on 9th
January 1970, when the narrow gauge track was finally closed down
forever.
Always thundering black smoke.
Twin Garratts heading out of
Jamestown to Belalie North.
Oh yes! what a sight to behold and
what a sound that was, the roar was just fantastic and can
still hear it.
Now gone forever,
except on my computer to re-live those wonderful steam Garratt sounds.
CLICK
to hear Garratt engine sounds and go back to the 1960's.
South Australian Railways Narrow gauge Bayer Garratt 4-8-2 + 2-8-4
Play sound
file: 1.4megs
Turn your sound well up for a realistic memory sound.
as these
were,,, very noisy engines under heavy load.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
SOME
MORE GARRATT ACTION OUT OF
JAMESTOWN
(This
pic by Ron Porter)
Garratt 406
up on train 274 crossing Garratt 404 down on 275
at the Caltowie end of the Jamestown yard, early 1969.
Garratt working in reverse on 274
Like
a volcano and sounded like one.
274
goods heading out from Jamestown.
Beyer
Garratt 406 getting stuck into it, heading
up the Belalie North
bank. Plenty of smoke.
Wonderful days.
Bayer Garratt
406 leaving Jamestown with full
load up the Belalie North bank.
Note the very high Absolute Home signal with a white slatted background board to make the signal
much clearer from a longer distance.
Both the Belalie North "home absolute" and "distant permissive"
signals were very high, so train crews could easily see them coming
down from Belalie North, as the
Belalie Bank was very steep and plenty of warning was needed to stop
a train if needed coming down that Belalie North bank. The grade was 1 in 60 virtually
off the Jamestown ash pit and water
column. So the engines needed to get stuck into it from a standing start
straight off the ashpit.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ... These next six Y97 pictures courtesy of John Phillips.
(John
Phillips)
Y97 leaving Yongala for Jamestown after
crossing an empty concentrates train sitting
at station for Peterborough. 9th Oct 1967.
(John
Phillips)
Y97 between Yongala and Belalie North.
The dip out from Yongala. 9th Oct 1967.
(John
Phillips)
Y97 taking water at Jamestown over ashpit on
the UP main. Engineman Paddy Harding oiling and
Stan Burns Loco Inspector (in dustcoat).
(John
Phillips)
Y97 on first curves out of Jamestown
(seen in background) heading to Belalie North
9th October 1967.
(John
Phillips)
Y97 on second curves out of Jamestown towards
Belalie North. 9th October 1967.
(John
Phillips)
Y97 standing at Belalie North from Jamestown
heading to Peterborough. 9th October 1967.
9th October
1967
Y97 on Jamestown turntable.
9th October
1967
Y97 arrives Jamestown
This
engine in the 1960's was only seen on historical runs.
The main fleet was Beyer Garratts (400 class) "T"
class and 830 diesel engines. The "Y's" were the
small workhorse from older times.
This engine is only Y to survive and is now in the Port Dock
Museum. This engine ran more than 832,000 miles, was used in
and around the Peterborough Loco sheds, even at the close of the
narrow gauge in 1970.
T251
here has just taken off a down train to Port Pirie
to now
return light engine to Peterborough.
251
on 294 just taken water. 1963
Note: hook coupling, as most "T's" had
hook on front and an automatic coupling on rear. Jamestown had a
turntable that could only turn engines up to a "T" class, Garratts
were far too long and in any case Garratts could work either
direction at same speed. Most times the "T's" headed Garratts to assist
with getting loading over the Belalie Bank into Jamestown, either
the "T" (most times) or the Garratt was taken off and returned to
Peterborough light engine, or, was at times attached to next up
train from Pt Pirie to take any extra previously reduced loading back over the Belalie Bank
into Peterborough.
To
turn engine it had to be balanced or no turn.
T 253 on Jamestown turntable
Saturday 31st May 1969.
Caltowie
on return to Gladstone,
Saturday 31st May 1969.
(These
3 above pictures:
Cliff Olds )
The ARHS ran a tour to
Gladstone hauled by 526, then T 253 to Jamestown and return.
I (Cliff Olds) worked as
S.M. Georgetown
in the morning and had booked for the narrow gauge leg only
because of that. It was a cold and very wet day,
despite the sunshine on the turntable shots.
CLICK
to hear engine sounds and go back to 1964.
South
Australian Railways Narrow gauge
"T" class leading a Bayer Garratt
Play
sound
file: 4.2megs The
magnificent sound of a double headed train with a
"T" class leading a Bayer Garratt heading out of
the station yard at full throttle.
Turn your sound well up for a realistic memory sound.
Picture of a
T class
and Beyer Garratt working together.
(
pic: unknown )
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
75
class Railcar is seen here on a Saturday morning returning from Pt
Pirie.
Saturdays the railcar would leave
Peterborough and arrive through Jamestown at 6:10am proceed to Port
Pirie and return back through Jamestown around 11am. But Monday to
Friday would see the Railcar through Jamestown at 6:10am and would
return back through Jamestown at 10pm that evening. Excellent
passenger service, also road bus departed Jamestown station at 5:30am for
Riverton, thence to Adelaide by passenger train ex Terowie. It was a real
challenge to keep 482 a through freight train ahead of the railcar
departing not later than 9pm through Jamestown as the trip from
Jamestown to Yongala was about an hour, would just clear the section
in time for the railcar to take a staff. So if we could not keep 482 ahead, then, it
stayed at Jamestown with 513 wayside freight and the railcar crossed 513 and
passed 482 and for whoever was on duty it was one hell of a very
busy night splitting and parking these trains, plus parcels in and out
was done all on your
own. Also at 10:10pm the road bus from Riverton via Clare (picked up
passengers from off the Adelaide - Terowie line) would arrive at
Jamestown with all the trains as well. At times it was a near
nightmare, so it was a very good incentive to do your utmost to keep the
trains on schedule, plus to keep the Train Controller very
happy.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Here on
another Saturday Morning at 11am is the old and the latest.
Railcar
& 830 class diesel.
This 830 was the new kid on the block in 1965 and was taken off 275 down goods for Port Pirie and this engine
then returned to Peterborough light engine once the railcar had cleared
Yongala. This was bit unusual, as they must have needed the power back in
Peterborough urgently for another train. The last up train on Saturday's usually came through Jamestown around 2 to
3pm.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
1937 Morris Motor Inspection
Car, or in railway
terms, an MIC. December 1968.
The MIC was used by
the railway heads to travel the track, also was used for the
fortnightly Pay car.
Note the turntable
disk under MIC. In early days I heard the MIC referred to as "The Dort car"
do not know why.
Since added trivia:The
SAR had a long history of running MICs. Morris's, Dorts,
Bedfords and of course the later Landcruisers. Looks like the name Dort car stuck with the later MIC
versions, though the one above not a true Dort car by nature.
Thanks to "Ralph Uppill"
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
These were the first
830's to appear at Jamestown Narrow Gauge 1963.
Left pic: The Jamestown yard just been extended out over the crossing
to cater for longer trains with diesel introduction.
First
twin
Diesels to appear on Narrow gauge seen here above were taken off 275 (down) and
then worked 274 (up) train back to Peterborough.
Part of the 274's GB can be seen in picture on the up main. In this
picture a Garratt would have worked from Port Pirie to
Jamestown to the cross and the Garratt would have been
changed engines over from 274 to 275 and then the Garratt worked back to Pirie
as the twin 830's would have been needed back at
Peterborough for next train to work over Belalie North, till
other 830's came online. Not often twin 830 diesels
worked right through to Port Pirie, we still use to do
engine changes with 830's at Jamestown, Caltowie or
Gladstone depending where the cross was to take place. (because
twins were always needed for loading over the Belalie bank)
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Three 830's on 274 pulling out of Jamestown heading to Peterborough October 1968.
This day they
were also taking spare NG carriages back to Peterborough from a Port Pirie
Smelters Picnic train the day before. The Port Pirie smelters picnic
were a yearly big excursion.
A note of interest here: The sheep ramp as you can see
here is a side loader ramp and a dirt mounded dead end. All hook loading and
sheep and cattle vans were all had hook couplings with side chains and
all hook loading was always marshalled behind the automatic couplings.
So this meant we were always shunting with huge strings and trying
to place these sheep vans to the side loading sheep ramp sorely
tested the most patient engine crew, especially those
when shunting with the Bayer Garratts. If you overshot the
sheep vans too much the vans could possibly go up the dirt mound and then
topple over onto the main line. (big trouble then) To my knowledge this never
happened, although I did see once (not me
by the way) a four wheel sheep van half way up the
mound
with a slight lean towards main line, now that was a close
call in my view. Also realise, most shunting was done at
night as the two roadside trains, 513 down at about 8:30pm and 554 up at 2am, so all night shunting was done with
kerosene hand signal lamps, (red and green shades) that had its terrifying
times if the wick blew out, but that went with the
interesting job, it was never boring. Quite testing at times, sure was.
NOTE: Often three 830 diesels worked through or
out of Jamestown back to Peterborough. Not often did twin
830's would work through to Port Pirie. They would work out
of Peterborough as twins to get the 1,750 tons loading over
Belalie North into Jamestown, then one 830 could take the
1750 ton train onto Port Pirie. These twins would only work
mostly to the cross of the UP goods from Port Pirie to get
any excess loading back over Belalie North. There was no need to
reduce at Jamestown anymore.
As example. 275 DOWN train to Port Pirie would work
out of Peterborough with twin 830's and work to the cross of
274 UP from Port Pirie. The cross could be at Gladstone,
Caltowie or Jamestown, although most times the cross took
place at Caltowie. The Port Pirie train most times would be
a single 830 and when it met the 275 DOWN with twin 830's,
the twin 830's would be changed over with 274 and returned
to Peterborough, a single 830 returned to Port Pirie on
275. It wasn't long this move was found to be not according
to SAR rule book at an unattended station, as technically
the UP and DOWN trains showed on a Train Order to have
crossed themselves (Caltowie being an unattended station)
This move was okay at Gladstone and Jamestown as these were
attended stations (no train orders needed for the cross)
it then got complicated where the rear 830 on the DOWN
had to be placed behind the engine on the UP. This then
showed officially that both leading engines actually crossed each
other according to the issued Train Order.
This is then what would happen at Caltowie. It depended
which train arrived first of course, but basically the twins
would be detached and placed on next track, (main line or
passing siding) then the single 830 would back onto the
twin 830's. The crews would then detach the lead DOWN engine
and the other crew would attach the (now middle) 830,
then change over engines, the Port Pirie crew on the DOWN
and Peterborough crew on the now UP twins. The now UP twin
830's would be put back onto the UP train and the single 830
put back on the DOWN train, then a continuity air test and
both trains now ready to do a legal Rule Book cross
according to the issued Train Order and both crews return to
their own depots. The single 830 to Port Pirie and twins to
Peterborough. Most crews preferred the cross to take place at Jamestown or Gladstone
of course as
the station staff then helped with this engine
maneuver.
At times odd twins did work right through to Port Pirie, this was
not often. When this did happen the next DOWN train from
Peterborough with twin 830's crossed the UP with twins out
from Port Pirie, one 830 was removed from DOWN train
and then placed on the UP train with the twins, thus
resulting in three 830's working back to Peterborough out of
Jamestown. (See
picture above of three 830's heading out of Jamestown
towards Peterborough).
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
Jamestown
station mid 1965 Before
the standard gauge line came to town.
Jamestown
station mid 1969
The OLD
Narrow Gauge yard left and other side
of the station is the NEW standard gauge line.
Picture at right:
Here progress has come upon the old Narrow Gauge. A now standard gauge
830 class loco with ballast plough and ballast wagons on new
Standard Gauge track going past in front of the Jamestown station heading towards
Caltowie. Jamestown Bowling green can be seen in background and main road to Orroroo and
Peterborough. Also in this picture you can see the pedestrian subway
at top end of station for the public to cross under the rail
yard to give easy access to the main street. The rail
yard actually cut the town in 2 parts.
Also worth noting the down main (track closest to station)
note how brown the ballast track is, as mentioned before that is rusting brake blocks
particles from the use of heavy braking applications of the heavy
ore down trains with grade valves in HP position. Brake blocks on these trains
could be seen glowing red hot at night was quite a sight.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
(Peter
Knife)
(
This photo of 404 courtesy of Peter Knife. Pt Lincoln. SA.)
404
pushing empty ore wagons in clear on 3rd road at Jamestown 2nd
January 1970
A few days before the final closure.
Here
is Peter's own words sent with his photo.
Unfortunately
the day was getting pretty late in the day and the sun had gone by then. It was
404 on 467 and from memory I think 404 was used simply to relocate the ore hoppers in the yard.
The hoppers certainly weren't on 467. We followed 467 from Peterborough through to Caltowie that day, then rode in the cab of 401 on 482 from Caltowie back to Peterborough. That was a memorable experience, with the Garratt running in reverse at night and the oil fire periodically flashing out the side of the firebox. Looked like lightning!
My notes say that 482 was at Jamestown from 8:50pm to 9:15pm, that we took
water and that a bogie gondola was added to the train.
Johnny's
bit.
Yes the time would be right, 482 leaving at 9:15pm. That would have been the deadline
to leave Jamestown ahead of the passenger railcar, as the run to Yongala was about an hour and the
railcar was due at Jamestown from Port Pirie at 10:10pm, so 482 would have just made it in time to clear the
Jamestown - Yongala section for the electric staff to be
drawn for the railcar to proceed to Yongala. That
movement would have made the Train Controller's day, he
would have been smiling.
From Peter's reply records of the cab trip.
Full timings for the trip that night: Caltowie dep.
8:26pm, Jamestown 8:50 - 9:15, Belalie North 9:44-9:47,
(take-outs)
Yongala 10:06-10:16, Peterborough arrive 10:38pm. That Yongala arrival (10:06) was just in time!
LAST
DOWN FREIGHT 275 last Down Garratt to Port Pirie 9th January
1970.
Here I'm handing the staff up to the Fireman of 404 on 291
down clearing out all wagons. This day we picked up a louver van from
the Goods shed for Gladstone and all that was left in the yard were the
reduced empty ore
wagons that can be seen on the 3rd road. Later that evening 554 headed by two
reversed Beyer Garratts number 400 and 401 after picking up the empty ore wagons on
the 3rd road. Was a long train. I road in the second
engine cab of 401 to Belalie North as we
literally roared out of Jamestown up the Belalie
Bank that evening, (fantastic memory) this was my last
goodbye to narrow gauge working and Garratt 401. My wife picked
me up at Belalie North.
Last Crew that worked 291,
the last down Garratt,
9th January 1970
Left:
The guard, Ron Harris.
Right: The
fireman. ??
Picking up louver van from shed road
Heading off to Caltowie from down main.
Impressive sight as she sidles past
Last Garratt on the down.... into history.
Garratt
404 in above pictures worked back to Peterborough from Port Pirie as
THE very last steam train 610. The Garratts are still to this day
are my very favourite engine. Two survived the cutter's torch, 402 is at Zig Zag
Railway in New South Wales and 409 is in Adelaide as a museum
piece at Port Dock, now National Rail Museum. Rest were cut up for scrap. Very sad. These engines were only built in 1953
and worked up to 1970, (17 years) so not a lot of steam life, but did a massive job very
successfully.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
S.A.R Peterborough Guard, Lindsay
Millard
at rear of 274 at Jamestown in May
1967.
Lindsay in his brakevan heading back to Peterborough.
>>>>
S.A.R Peterborough Guard,
a young Danny Vandernende
taking a run- through Jamestown on 274, Dec 1968.
I
met Danny at Peterborough on 4th May 2005 37
years later and
yes, Danny is still smiling.
Guards
and engine crews from Peterborough and Port Pirie would work
to the cross of each other, then change over crews and return
to their home stations. Train crosses took place mostly at
Caltowie. At times at either
Gladstone, or, here at Jamestown. The guard and motorman of railcar would always work through to Port
Pirie and return that same night on the return up railcar.
PETERBOROUGH
NARROW GAUGE DIVISION SCHEDULE
OF STEAM LOCOMOTIVES
FROM 1st DECEMBER, 1969
TILL THE FINAL TRACK CLOSURE on 10th
January, 1970.
And
the beginning of a new rail
era, that is if one can call it that.
Jamestown
Station, goods shed, stock ramp taken from Main North road. August
1983.
New SG Jamestown Station Feb 1970
Jamestown SG Freight Shed Feb 1970
Railway prefab home we shifted into Jan 1970
Once
the narrow gauge was finished on 9th January 1970, (sad day) we were
all shifted out to the new standard gauge Jamestown "dog box" station out
on the edge
of town and yes it was literally out of the town and looked more like a
whistle stop stuck in a 40 acre paddock, instead of a railway station. This was
bit hard to take to
this after the narrow gauge days. My wife and I also had to shift out of the
old Station House to another
railway prefab home on the eastern side of the town as the old Station House was then handed
over to be made into a Museum. After a few weeks out at new
Standard Gauge station things were bit quiet, as bugger all shunting to do now
and no shift work anymore as CTC signalling meaning only one employee
needed for day work, so being the junior of the two porters in
service I agreed reluctantly to go to
Peterborough relieving working three shifts and travelling back and forward
each day (44 klms) while the Standard Gauge yard was being sorted
out and spent most of my time admitting trains from Broken
Hill into new marshalling yard and piloting engines to and from
Peterborough loco through the Peterborough station yard out the
other side to the new marshalling yard where the Broad and Standard
gauge bogie exchange was. At times crews would book on, prepare engines and by time
they got put onto their train they were relieved by another crew before they
even got out the
yard, such was the mess during conversion. Here I saw the first CL
engine from
Sydney arrive and it looked huge compared to the usual 830's on narrow gauge
and 600's that were used on the ballast trains of the standard gauge as it was
being built.
The
thing I remember the most about the Peterborough marshalling yard in
early 1970, was those persistent easterly very cold winds and at night it was
so darn freezing (wind chill) in the marshalling yard. Well Yongala
was only a few klms just down the road between Peterborough and
Jamestown and is said Yongala to be "THE" coldest place in South Australia.
After some time I could see the writing was on the wall with our jobs on
the line and coming
like an express train, so then decided is better take a shift
to somewhere I would at least prefer to be, than get forced shifted up to
Peterborough
as I could easily see Peterborough's days were well and truly
numbered now that the Standard Gauge has arrived. I
never did like the city life, as I started my railway career in
Adelaide car sheds and once qualified in tickets, then started working on the
suburban Red Hens, till fully qualified and took a country shift to
Jamestown, so the further away from the city for me, the
better.
I would have
preferred Port Lincoln as a first choice, but to get shunter's jobs over there someone
had to either retire, or push up daisies. An assistant shunter's job then came
available at
Mount Gambier, so I took it and we shifted there late May 1970 and I
started work at Mount Gambier on June
1st 1970 and within 3 months was a supervising shunter. I've
never ever had any ideas of ever becoming a guard, the one thing I would
have disliked the most, was those "tucker box" jobs. (stuck
in barracks was not my thing) If I could have put up with doing tucker box jobs, I
would have become an engineman, so shunting
suited me perfectly and got paid for doing something I dearly loved doing
the most.
Plus it kept me quite fit with plenty of running around.
Jamestown
Yard
in 1968 and later in 2000.
...
click on the small pictures to view a larger picture ...
THE
OLD NG JAMESTOWN RAIL YARD NOW
GETS TO SEE A LOCAL SG
GRAIN SHUNT TRAINS. ( Pics
Spike Jones )
13th
December 2012
2210
grain
Loading on silo road. Jamestown.
13th
December 2012
2210
grain
Loading on silo road. Jamestown.
13th
December 2012
2210
grain
Loading on silo road. Jamestown.
13th
December 2012
2210
grain
Loading on silo road. Jamestown.
13th
December 2012
2210
grain
Loading on silo road. Jamestown.
13th
December 2012
2nd
engine GM40 grain
Loading on silo road.
These two aerial pictures were taken while flying over Jamestown
in a Jabiru, January 2000.
also
In January 2000 I flew to Jamestown from Gawler in a two
seater Jabiru. JABIRU Read
about the Ultra-light aircraft
flight viewing.
SOME
MEMORY BITS THAT HAVE COME TO MIND
SINCE.
A MEMORY of FIRST CONTACT with TRAIN CONTROL in
April 1963
This a bit of a laugh now, but definitely was not funny back then in 1963.
After I was fully qualified I had to take a country position so left the big smoke and the suburban Redhens for Jamestown
(between Gladstone and Peterborough) on the Narrow Gauge in the Mid North of
S. A. Once at Jamestown came on Road Bus had couple days to unpack our furniture into the SM's house which was attached to Jamestown station. The SM
(Station Master) Jack Kelly had his own home in the town as he had a very large family.
My first day as a raw station porter was on a Monday first working week under supervision
on day shift. I was given a week on each of three shifts
Day, afternoon and night to learn the ropes. By then you were on your own on afternoon shifts
as after 5pm everyone else went home and on night shift
as well till 8am when the Station Master booked on, so was very important that one learnt the ropes pretty quick. On afternoon and night shifts the only person you have any contact with is yes,,,
a mysterious fellow on a phone called "TRAIN CONTROL" and they to a newbie is just a voice on a Train Control phone which was
situated at Peterborough and they not concerned who you are outside
of their trains, they too busy controlling trains as they got their
own job to do, as you do on the outlying stations. Personally speaking, from all the years I've worked with Train Control, I would not have liked to do their job, stuck in a little room with a world outside and no "hands on" of any trains, only a headset, pencil, rubber and the
train graph showing all the day/nights train
working movements. No wonder some would get bit cranky after awhile.
First a little groundwork here. My father was an SM and I as a youngster use to at times go into the station office, normally was out of bounds to us kids but Dad was stickler if we did come into the office then we had to do something meaningful like stamp piles of blank station and freight shed waybills with the local station stamp. Yes a very boring,,, monotonous,,, job that was, so hence us kids would give the office a wide birth as in those days there was too much fun to be had out and about with your school mates
of course after all your daily chores were done.
(cows to paddock, pickup the daily cow poop, chop wood,
separate milk for cream etc) Actually it was a
good way to keep the railway employee's kids away from the
station office. Times where I did stamp waybills
was mostly on cold miserable days more so at Auburn between 1950-55, when not much cop being outside in
the cold. I use to watch Dad take the Train Orders over a phone on the wall. For me all stations I’ve seen the Train Control phone one had to stand up to use it
as there was no sitting down. When at Mannahill 1948-50 Dad would draw a staff and attach the train order to it. At Auburn though he'd take the Train Order as it was
actual Train Order Territory and then he would have to repeat and spell all station names and numbers back to Control, but Mannahill was electric staff only, so one only needed to repeat what was written down, no spelling out anything.
Anyway, now back to my first Monday morning with some on the ground serious train working at long last. On the Redhens it was only Ticket Collecting with a guard on board who did all the actual train working and did all
the speaking to train control. Was good thing I started on day shift where there was a Parcels clerk besides the
Station Master. At Jamestown the SM had his own
personal office other side of station through a corridor from the main ticket/parcels office. 275 goods was due around 10:30am and Terry Donnellan
(nickname Stilts) the parcels clerk said "I'll get you to ask train control if okay to draw a staff for Caltowie and you will probably need to take a Train Order to cross 274
goods their. Well I near crapped myself as I'd never listened to, or spoken to, a Train Controller before.
Now back to about me saying that all Train Control phones are usually high up on the wall and I've always noticed to talk on the Control phone from a rear viewer's perspective one look like your standing to attention while taking to Train Control. This of course as a youngster watching my Dad or the station clerk at the time, they always seemed to standing to attention and everything spoken, was short, sharp and to
the point, no idle chatter, much like my army CO when I was in
National Service in 1959 had roared out an order and you all came to instant attention smartly, no back answering or funny quips. It all seemed just so deadly serious. In a way one could say you pick up phone and hello, its “God” on the line, mind you a couple of those guys thought they were God too.
Now you might just see now my reluctance to have to talk to train control on that phone. Terry really had to push me and as he said that
remember in 3 weeks you will be on your very own entirely on afternoon and midnight shifts, you will be the boss
(all for 3 pence or 3 cents) a shift, big bucks
hey). Well he was dead right I gota break the ice NOW. Terry
(Stilts) tells me what to say which was. First, make sure your Train Order Book has the 2
carbon sheets inserted between pages correctly, as you’ll have no time to mess with them when you have to take a train order for a cross etc. Secondly, pickup the
Train Control phone, remember Train Control cannot hear you, till you pull down that key,
(That was later very handy for ear wigging in
quiet times as to what was going on down and up the track, of course that suppose to be a no, no, BUT!!! Was great when your on your own and not wished to get too bored in between
trains.) So it was key-down to talk, key-up to listen. Now
first listen to hear that control is not already taking to someone. If
all quiet, or he's finished speaking to whoever, you call out your station name "JAMESTOWN" So this I did with bit nervous voice like you were about to be assassinated. I still did not know what to expect.
Suddenly, I hear in a gruff very much to the point
voice was spat out like a shot ringing out, "JAMESTOWN". I'm really hesitant now and Terry whispers right behind me to say "will 275 be okay for Caltowie" which I said to control. Now a short time had elapsed and Control said again, now in a much more very annoyed voice, "YES, JAMESTOWN". Now the heart rate is over 5,000rpm and climbing
rapidly as I managed to say again "will 275 be okay for Caltowie". I wait and nothing, next thing I hear in
much more annoyed voice "YESsssssss JAMESTOWN" Terry then spots that I hadn't pushed the
TC key-down to speak. Oh hell, now really getting bit more rattled, no, really bloody rattled. I pull the key-down and blurt out "Will 275 be okay for Caltowie" I hear back very much annoyed voice saying, "yes 275 be right, but you will need to take a Train Order for a cross with
274 at Caltowie". Well I'm in the deep end now, as to a train order
I had never done one before, though passed Train Orders by correspondence which was far from this reality. Anyway, control says are you ready. I
pull the key down and said "Yes". The next thing I hear is
train control speaking like a machine gun, all I
heard was "Train Order 58 and the rest became just
a total blur and then total panic set in by now as it all came over at me like verbal diarrhea.
All I heard was the Max Istead controller at the end of the train order. Once control finished the order, you had to repeat it all back to him.
So you can imagine what was about to happen when I said, "sorry I only got
the "Train Order 58" bit and nothing else as this is my
very first Train Order. I'm the new porter that started here today". Well this guy just went
to blast-off ballistic and off the meter at me,
(maybe had a knock back at home that night) I just put the phone down quite shaken and said to Terry that so an so just blew the shit out me. Even remembering back now that was a very nasty experience for a new starter or any employee where hands-on train working is concerned and any employee stirred up around trains is definitely not a good thing I tell you from a lot of
rail hands on experience since that first day, so much so I
still remember this one so clearly to this very day still 48 years later. Set like concrete. Well good ol young Terry came to my aid and picked up the phone and tried to pacify Maxy baby and it
then got very heated as Terry was sticking up for me and Maxy wasn’t having it.
With that Jack Kelly the SM had heard all the ruckus from his office and came into the
parcels office and I quickly explained what happened to me. So Jack Kelly said to Terry,
"GIVE ME THAT PHONE and Jack was from Irish descendants and when Jack's face turns red, everyone
better duck for cover real quick. Well Jack speaks to Max and it was on for young and old and Jack flew into him and after much ado and things finally
got calmed down, Jack gives me the Train Control phone and said quietly to me, now maybe he be bit more patient and respectful to new fellow.
Man was I proud of my new boss, first time I really had someone of position stick up for me. So now I say "Jamestown" and I heard back quietly "yes Jamestown, now let's try for that train order again. Well it was incredible now a human being at last on other
end and went something like this.
Train Order 58. Have you got that? Yes I replied.
Date, 28-04-1963. Got that? Yes.
Guard and Engineman 275 at Jamestown. Got that? Yes.
Engine 402. Got that? Yes.
Take Passing Siding. Got that? Yes.
At Caltowie. Now I say, "yes got that".
Cross goods 274. I say again, "yes got that".
Engine 401. Yes, I got that.
Take Crib on arrival. I got that.
Received at Jamestown. Got that.
10:05am. Got that.
Max Istead, Controller. Yes, got that I said.
Max now says when your ready, repeat it all back to
me please.
The rest was easy now which went like this.
Train Order: 58 on 28/4/1963.
To Guard and Engineman of Train No: 275 at Jamestown.
Engine: 402.
Take Passing Siding at Caltowie
Cross goods 274 engine 401.
Take crib on arrival.
Received at Jamestown: 10:05am
Repeated from Jamestown: 10:06am
Repeated by Station Master: J Masson.
Max Istead Controller.
Yes it was a piece of cake from that point onwards. But was good in one respect being chucked in the deep end like that. On my first afternoon shift under another porter's supervision after 11pm the Assistant Train Controller for the Port Pirie board goes off duty and the Cockburn Train Controller board takes over both boards during the whole night shift. I remember the Porter who was supervising me said to me would you like to check with train control to see if 554 needs an train order for a cross of 107 at Yongala. By then I had done a couple of train orders from that previous week's day shift. I picked the phone up expecting to hear the Assistant
Controller still on, but a new voice of Joe Murphy.
The Cockburn board had taken over the Pirie board and
Joe said, "yes you will need an order, would you like to take it now, instead of later on". He then said,
"are you the new chap at Jamestown, so I'll give you the order slowly". I said yes
thanks and he was an absolutely thorough gentleman and from that point I'd go out of my way to make his trains go through to help out with his tight crosses, though I did that for most controllers anyway.
John Harrison would try to rattle you, he seemed to have a strange quirk
to enjoy doing that. I found he was one to be bit wary of, till Des Hobbs
another gentleman on Pirie board invited me to come up to Peterborough and see how Train Control ran on an afternoon shift as I'd never seen what went on in Train Control. I took up the offer and Des was on the Pirie board and John H was on the Cockburn board. I often use to listen in on the night shift and John H would often stir the hell out of
the Cockburn and Gladstone porters at times for some reason which I not liked that at all. As I know all too well what it is like to be out there running around flat chat at night
with a kero lamp from one end of the yard to the other with signals, parcels, tickets
often with 2 trains crossing and passing with railcars and road bus departure and you do all that on your own. No help and last thing was needed was Train Control setting you up for a giggle. Anyway, this night Des was explaining how TC works on the graphs, when I hear John H saying to Des hey listen to so and so at Cockburn with the speaker
on. John H stirs into Cockburn and the fellow at Cockburn is near cracking a total mental. John H laughs and I did not see
the funny side of that. I look at Des and Des raises his eyebrows at me I think understanding how I felt about John H doing that which I've had done to me in tight situations. I learnt a lot that night and I never let John H
ever try to razz me ever again, as I would come back at him with all he dished out. So this was another learning curve that one must learn all the idiosyncrasies of
all those working around real quick for you to get job done best as possible.
Train Control never bothered me ever again, I got along with most controllers very well but there was a couple of
Train controllers that bought many train delay hassles on themselves
by being just too
dogmatic and at times and the station staff out on
the stations often wore the brunt of it needlessly. Was not right, but those were the days
though mostly good ol days with some odd bad moments. So yes finally Control was not
a God, but just flesh and blood that bled like the rest of us.
THE
GUARD WHO WAS WAY AHEAD
OF HIS TRAIN
Well is hard to just start rail memories just by saying so, usually those good ol memories often come by relating to
something somewhere, well in my case they do anyway. Of late I'd been doing some beta testing on some Narrow Gauge rollingstock for the "Northern Narrow Gauge route" that is at present in the pipeline for MSTS users
later on. This memory below happened on the old Peterborough Narrow Gauge back in the mid 1960's that came to mind while I was testing the Jamestown - Belalie part of it,
as that was very familiar territory to me.
Okay, for those of you that may not be old enough to remember those earlier South Australian Railway days, or, not in the know about guards as I only had someone say to me recently when I mentioned guards on trains. The answer was, "what were guards on trains for". Wow,,,,
Suddenly I'm older than I thought. Anyway, in SAR days all trains had guards in a Brake Van or Goods Brake (GB) on the rear of all trains. "Guards" you say, yes, but they not there to protect payrolls or guard prisoners. They were responsible for the train's safe
working and bookwork (no computers those days, just a pencil, paper and
rubber) and at unattended stations they would do all shunting, the unloading and loading parcels, mailbags, collect tickets and all sorts of weird take-outs,
(as once the S.A.R. was a common carrier and they HAD
TO take anything that was offered, there was no picking or choosing
freight) and often some very heavy stuff too. Most unattended stations had no lighting at night, it be as black as a dog's behind
(being polite here). Was not good or fun when it's raining cats and dogs and/or blowing a near gale
either and at night with just a kerosene lit hand signal lamp to see and work by. I'd say any old guards who get to read this would bring back plenty of memories good and bad.
This was rather humorous experience and how it finally played out.
First a bit of boring ground work to get the full picture.
I was stationed at Jamestown third station from Peterborough towards Port Pirie in the 1960's, our Peterborough Narrow Gauge trains used electric staff working that governed each section. Working the night shift at Jamestown was often very busy time. I'd just dispatched 554 the roadside shunt train for Belalie North onto Yongala for a cross with 107 ore train bound for Port Pirie. After 554 departed, I booked the train out to Train Control and asked him roughly about what time 107 be due at Jamestown. This was handy to know as one can then get some nice kip time. Of course if you were going to get some shut eye, there were certain things you had to setup in yard to cover some bases in case you slept a bit heavy. (laughing) Once you knew what was what, I'd then setup the yard and the switches set and pinned (cheese knobs) for the down main as Jamestown had 2 main lines an up and down mains interlocked with
Lower Quadrant signals. I'd then pull the distant and home stick
off and have everything set up ready to received the train straight into the yard as it had to stop at end of the yard to do the GCVs.
( Grade Control Valves ) The electric staff section was Yongala - Jamestown, it use to be Jamestown - Belalie North - Yongala till they removed the electric staff instrument out of Belalie North which made that section now an hour's travelling both
ways and Guards never had to report at Belalie North, on the up
(that's to Peterborough) as they would run through Belalie North, but they
HAD TO stop on the down (that's to Port Pirie) and set the GCVs before proceeding on down
steep incline 1 in 60 into Jamestown, so quite often Train Control would not buzz Jamestown to give the okay for an electric staff to be withdrawn for next section till some 10 to 15 minutes before a train's arrival. This was also handy for getting some extra kip time.
One good thing with Jamestown no down train can be given a run through
(meaning: green light or flag so it not have to
stop). Jamestown - Belalie was a 1 in 60 steep grade which coming from Belalie North down to Jamestown all loaded ore wagons had to have the GCVs set to the HP position, this holds brakes part
way on so gives driver time the recharge the train for next brake application. When a down ore train pulled into station one could often see molten cast-iron dripping off the brake blocks they would get so hot with brakes partly on all the
way from Belalie. This meant when they arrived in the Jamestown yard all GCVs had to be reset to the IP
(slow full release) position. XP was exhaust (normal brake position).
Anyway, I settled down for what looked like a near quiet 1½ hours kip, or till Train Control rang to say 107 is onto me and it is okay to withdraw a staff for the Jamestown - Caltowie section, next station
on towards Port Pirie, or often it was also to take a train order to take either Main line or Passing siding to cross with Goods 108 at
Caltowie an unattended station after hours. Then Train Control would give you all the info about the cross, also about when the engine crew to take their 20 minute crib either on arrival, or after the crew change, as both Port Pirie and Peterborough crews would always changed over and worked back to their own depots. This night it was mid winter, very cold as usual, could even been a slight frost. I had a firewood Narrow Gauge sleeper literally cut in half and both halves in an open fireplace poked up the chimney, this usually was done as soon as I booked on and took over at midnight and the resulting fire and hot coals would last well into mid morning. The boss (SM) always had a nice warm office when he booked on at 8am. Also Passengers that caught the road bus at 5:30am to Riverton and the 6am Brill Railcar for Gladstone and Pt Pirie welcomed the nice cozy station office, instead of freezing outside on the platform. Jamestown was just a few miles down the track from the coldest place in South Australia.... YONGALA.
Here I was with office door locked with a fantastic open fire going, had my lola-bout setup and nicely lounging back like a bug in a rug for an expected nice maybe 1½ hour kip. Was having a nice doze when suddenly there is an very anxious loud knocking on the office door and I heard a car driving away. Gingerly I open the office door and there was a train guard looking bit dusty and in bit of distress. I said, "what the hell happened to you". He said, "I'm the guard off 107 and instantly I said to him, "Oh no, not a derailment". He said, "no" and then tells me when he got to Belalie North he walked the train doing the GCVs till he met the Fireman coming up from engine setting the GCVs to his half of train. The Guard and Fireman would both do the GCV till they met and the Guard said to Fireman, your okay to nick off when you get back on the engine.
The guard got back to the GB and thought he got bit of time for a quick leak. Not quite finishing his
leak and no warning or whistle, suddenly the train took off with guard near wetting himself and trying to run after his brake van to grab it and jump on the step, but then slips and goes down and rolls in the dirt. Picks himself up to see his train's marker lights heading off down the track in the distance. Actually Belalie
North Yard runs slightly downhill towards Jamestown and loaded trains
as soon as you release the brakes can get going pretty
quickly. Lucky for him the local storekeeper was bringing over some mail bags to lock in shed for the Pirie
morning Railcar. Those days ALL mails went by train. The Belalie storekeeper said to guard, quick jump in the car and I'll run you down to the Jamestown station just 7 miles
away and that was the car I heard driving off. The young guard was rather upset that he'd get into
serious trouble, but I assured him, hey! who is going to find out, not from me and I'm sure not
from your train crew either. The crew will definitely not say anything, as there was not an actual second right of way signal (green light) given to show that the guard was in his brake van, so they be in as much poo as you.
With that I said to the guard, "come on in by the fire and get tidied up and we'll wait for your train to arrive". Train Control rang and was all I could do to not show any humour
as Control said what time 107 will arrive here and that 107 is okay for a staff for Caltowie, also I think I took a train order for a cross at Caltowie with 108. I took the staff out of the Caltowie instrument and said to the Guard, "here's your train order and hey! you got it all before you arrived" and we both had to laugh. Then I said to him, "here, you take the staff and train order and hand it up to your Fireman as the train goes past and let's see the look on his face when he sees his train guard giving him the staff" when he should be at the rear of his train.
Well, in comes 107 and guard stands on platform which is at track level, he holds up the staff to his fireman. The fireman throws his Yongala staff onto the platform
(not suppose to but was often a done thing) and THEN.... the fireman suddenly recognises it is his guard with the staff hoop and he was then near instantly half hanging out of the cab yelling out, "How did you get down here". It was a perfect picture, pity no movie camera. I was totally cracking up, as it was a really classic situation. Next thing you see the fireman and driver was off the engine like a rocket, both bolting back to the station to find out what gives. So then all was revealed and eventually all could see the rare funny side of it. Fortunately no one hurt just some embarrassed faces at first.
I bet after that episode the crew looked out for the second right of way everytime. By the way we were allowed 10 minutes for resetting GCVs
(Grade Control Valves) so was plenty of time to be un-embarrassed
(and no running time lost) to end up as a good
laugh thankfully for all concerned. Of course the guard I use to rag him a bit each time he went through Jamestown, "I see your still in the GB", he'd just give me the thumbs up and big grin, but that can easily happen to any guard in those good ol days. Those days it was really a team railway, everyone where possible covered each other. Do miss them still, though
now over 40 years ago.
SOUND
RECORDINGISTS GOT SOME CLOSE GARRATT
ACTION
When the 830's took over from steam in 1964-5, Belalie North
was still a staff station, so up till then there was no need
to double head back to Peterborough from Belalie as engines
would run light engine as it was only 2 sections to travel
home. But when Garratts came back into action was a
different scenario, no Belalie staff section anymore, hence the
opportunity to see twin Garratts out of Jamestown back to
Peterborough and most railfan folk sadly missed witnessing
this. For some reason railfans rarely did came to Jamestown,
mostly Gladstone, Huddleston, or Crystal Brook, but they
failed to see THAT Jamestown was where the real steam action
often was, as Jamestown was a reducing station, reason for an
actual up
and down interlocked main lines, also hence this Jamestown
page to show some of what they all missed. Most of the
serious steam action at Jamestown granted, was sadly during the night.
A little funny short story. Back in the late 1960's on
an afternoon shift, a couple of sound-fans wanted to catch
some Garratt sound action in the yard, obviously they knew
there was a Garratt on 467 down Pirie train out of
Peterborough. As luck would have it for them, normally 467
was a through freight, meaning it stopped 10 minutes only to change
the position of the grade valves. But train control
decided at last minute to do a swap and do the roadside shunt with 467 and
513 the normal roadside train would then be the through
train. So I said to these fellows, "your in luck
as you will get the best action your have ever heard".
I told them where to set up their sound recorder microphones just
past the freight shed Caltowie end. I ran up to facing
switches threw the
sticks back at stop, as the
sticks were setup for 467 to enter on the down main and then
setup the switches right through for the 4th (silo) road as we were going
to pick up some loaded wheat bogie wagons for Port Pirie. Reason for
that movement down 4th road is a Garratt could only push
back 850 tons
back up into the Jamestown
yard from the down main Caltowie end. By using 4th road, not
a lot of loading actually went down the hill out of the yard.
All ore wagons were auto couplings and all hook loading always
had to go behind the autos via an auto-hook adapter.
That would have meant splitting the train onto the
sheep siding coming off the down main before doing the shunt, thus
taking a lot of extra time. Point of interest here: an
830 could only push back 800 tons back, not as good as a Garratt
of 850 tons rather easy.
Anyway, the Garratt stops at the home stick (signal). By the
way it can take awhile to admit a train account the grade valves
in the HP position had to release enough to move the train.
I admitted 467 to fourth road and the sound lads are quite
wide eyed as I adjusted the grade valves to the EX position
(pointing
down) to shunt with. I said to the guard what was about
to happen, he smiled. I uncouples and waved engine to pull
ahead with a string of ore trucks (loaded
auto couplers and lot of weight) We then pickup about
300 ton bogie wheat, (hook couplings also an auto adapter change required)
now we have a lot of tonnage. We pull ahead to clear down
past the switches,
then set road for back onto rest of the train a good
way up the yard.
The guard and I look to see the lads are
enjoying their sound recording position. Yes, looks fine, so
back over the other side and now for the action. I give
"big kickoff to the driver" Well,,,, all hell was
let loose as the Garratt really got stuck into it with a lot
of tonnage now, there was
dust and steam flying and Garratt roaring. Then gave a stop
and then we eased up and coupled up nicely, did the air and
reset grade valves into IP position (horizontal) as I
walked up to the driver to give him the electric staff and a
train order for a cross a train at Caltowie and the crew said,
"what was all that about". I explained and they
near fell out the engine laughing. They said they saw the
lads when coming in with their sound gear near the track and
thought it might have something to do with it, reason we
gave it a good go.
As soon as 467 had gone out the yard and I booked it out
with Train Control who was very happy with the quick shunt.
The sound lads were on the platform bright eyed and I asked
"Well how was that for real steam action" They
were beyond themselves and I would doubt if they would ever
forget that sound recording session being so up close to the
real Garratt action. Only trouble was I have never heard that recording
they took. So if one of you out there now reading this and
can remember this action on that late afternoon in late 1960’s
at Jamestown with the mighty Garratt, I'd dearly love to
hear that recording. Yes,,, good ol days when one got paid
to enjoy what one so dearly loved doing. Working 'hands on'
with steam trains. Sadly now gone forever. Though did
have some good action times with the 830 diesels.
Last
twin Garratts 400 and 401 on 554 Up to Belalie North 9th
January 1970.
A
rather funny Garratt story about that
final narrow gauge night at Jamestown.
When the twin Garratts as 554 arrived at Jamestown it had to pick up a big string of ore empties off our 3rd road. My wife, her
younger sister and myself were waiting for the twin Garratts at the water column. I saw that the lead engine had a few fellows on board, so I asked the engineman of second engine which I preferred anyway for the trip up to Belalie. He said, 'sure, no problem' as he knew me. Just as the engines
were near ready to pickup the string of ore empties after taking water, I climb up into cab and the engineman said, 'what about the girls'
(my wife and her younger sister) The girls were bit hesitant, but reluctantly said okay and there we were, 5 of us. Anyway was a jovial time and everyone was laughing the girls giggling as was certainly an unusual experience for them.
Time now to pickup the ore empties. I was looking out the driver's door as we proceeded out and over onto the 3rd road. The girls were standing in middle of engine. As we coming back onto the 3rd road empties I could see the Garratts had gathered a little extra speed as it was very downhill onto 3rd road. Next thing our engineman yells, 'hang on everyone' as I can see we were going a bit on the quick side so close to the empties. Next thing "bump" we hit the empties not overly that fast, more of a slight misjudgment. As soon as the engines coupled fairly hard, my wife gabbed me but her sister went backwards as nothing for her to hold onto and behind her was a ½ bucket of water and she sat in it fare and square perfectly. Never hurt her, but the embarrassment as everyone grabbed her to lift her out of the water bucket. Fortunately she did not got very wet. It was then a laugh all round. While they were pumping up the air the girls got off as they took our car to Belalie
North to pick me up and we pulled the string out and coupled onto the train, an air test and away we went roaring
out the yard up the Belalie bank into history.
My wife and her sister we still joke and laugh about that night 40 years later. I often wonder if the crew of that engine have any fond memories of that final shunt exercise. Great memories.
TIT
BIT.
The Garratts on wet cold nights were nice to be in (like
homely from a non driver's viewpoint) not so on hot
days, as the Garratts had a closed-in cab. When shunting I
use to feel sorry for the crews working the roadside
"T's". Roadside trains were always T's even when
the 830’s were in full swing. All the crews had for
protection from the elements on “T’s” was a piece of
canvas between cab roof and tender to keep some of the
weather out, not all that well either in my view.
But one thing I can say for NG steam crews from a ground
shunter's viewpoint. A steam train would pull up in the
yard, take water, and cross other trains or whatever
night or day. I or ground staff could go out virtually
anytime and give a hand signal, or wave the kero lantern to
start a shunt and 99% of the time, night or day, wet or dry,
the crew were right on the ball. When you worked with steam
you took all that for granted.
But as soon as Narrow Gauge became dieselised, it was almost like
someone flicked a switch. Crews now in their nice cumfy
closed-in cabs with electric heaters on, better seating and
cup of coffee on the console. This use to pee off the ground
staff as now near 99% of the time the ground staff would
often have to walk, or run all the way up the train often equal
to, or near 100 (4 wheel wagons) to the engine, thump on
side of cab to wake them up. It was incredible how some
crews could even fall asleep, between moving the diesel's
reversing lever from forward to reverse, or vice versa.
The
steam crews looking back now I do take my hat off to them
all. Yes, in my view steam was so alive and was like family
/ caring, it was a different attitude world. On other hand
when diesels came, they became like near dead and self
centered. Diesels did destroy the old steam engineman’s
ways, much like that old 70's song "video killed the radio star".
An attitude price I guess was paid for our on-going technology.
When hand radios were instituted later in the 1980's to all
shunt staff, this solved that problem. Just press the radio
switch and yell "wakey, wakey, hands off etc, etc, engine 503, go
ahead". So the tide then turned and all that
un-necessary running leg work and cursing saved. That was a plus,
also the boss at the station could actually hear everything that was
being said during shunt movements.
NARROW
GAUGE WAS NEVER BORING.
Interesting
Narrow Gauge steam
in China.
Click this link HERE
Love it.....
Actually up until the old Narrow Gauge yard at Jamestown was
re-sleepered in 1965, the station shunt tracks (not
our two up and down main lines) was very much like
that in the movie. Most of the shunt tracks was lucky to have much of the sleeper
left under the rails, the hard dirt would be all
that held the track in place and was bit iffy when it was very wet.
When roadside trains were admitted to the 4th road to do
the shunts that movie reminded me often of seeing the T class
(always usually on roadside trains) would rock'n
roll and sway going down the yard virtually like that.
Best was watching the Garratt on 467
a normal through ore train at odd times had to do the roadside
pickups in lieu of 513 doing it later that night and when
Garratt was admitted to 4th road, not so much the Garratt itself
as they quite long engine, (movement not as
noticeable) but the ON's of ore would do their
dance around all over the place, bobbing up and down and going side to side. Was great
riding on wagons steps when shunting at good turn of speed.
(actually it was quite exciting).
All this went fine till in 1965 admitting 467
about 5:30pm a Garratt loaded ore train to the 4th road,
suddenly could see the ON's jumping up and down
much more than usual, that not looked too good so stopped the
train movement. On checking came across a bogie with
its bogie wheels only on one side of wagon in the dirt
(yes track had spread). I checked ore
wagons up to the engine and all the bogies had scrape marks
on side of the bogie wheels indicating that all the ore bogies
on one side of train had been in the dirt and had
re-railed themselves. The engine was okay reason
driver not felt anything was wrong. The good thing was
each bogie had re-rail itself before the second ON
bogie ore wagon dropped off the track.
Just
uncoupled other side of the silo loop switches and waved driver ahead
slowly and watched the rest of wagons slowly drop off
track into the dirt and then nicely re-railed themselves. Was then just a matter
of once past other end loop switches to then push back out around the silo/shed loop and re-coupled back onto train where I had cut off previously so
it was all fixed, no damage except to where track
had spread. Track bit messed up but re-rail job done quickly with not much delay to
the train. Local Per Way gang repaired track next
day.
After that the SAR re-sleepered all the 3rd and 4th roads and also renewed the two Up and Down yard main lines. So yes that movie was great reminder of those good ol days when going to work was very enjoyable, as you never knew just what might happen on
or during your shift. Was never boring, never.
file: 1.4megs
A MEMORY of FIRST CONTACT with TRAIN CONTROL in
April 1963