My name is John (Johnny) Masson born 9th May 1941 at Stepney in Adelaide though Dad was stationed at Goolwa where he took his first railway position in late 1940, then at Naracoorte, Stepney, Woodville Park, Mannahill, and Auburn. My father was a Station Master from the mid 1940's and most of my childhood days was living on, or very near the railway station premises. I left primary school grade 7 at Auburn when 14 years old and went off to Adelaide on my own to board and started work as a Carpenter and Joiner at Kensington, as my father said I needed to do a trade as he was happy about me having a railway career. I always wanted to work "hands on" with trains, one might say was in the blood. I had to bide my time doing 4 years in the carpentry trade at Kensington for T.A.Cook and Co and left after Tom Cook the boss passed away and his brother and daughter then put the business on the market. Being going on 18 years old and National Service was due which I was balloted out. I then volunteered for it and was called-up for the very last old intake of National Service in August 1959. I might add this was best thing I did as was great for some character building. After finishing my three months service at Woodside camp I then started for Horsell Jayman & Sons on South Road Hilton as delivery truck driver and a year later was their only crane driver. Actually enjoyed doing that till I turned 21, as once 21 I now was no longer subject to my father's wishes and could now do as I liked. 

As soon as I was 21 and as Dad was still with Railways at Bowden. I then asked him if he could get me an interview to join the Railways. Still remember his reaction just saying "Well your determined aren't you" So it was off to do the railway medical and joined the South Australian Railways on 21st May 1962 and as there was no railway school started, so in meantime it meant starting out my rail career in the Adelaide Car sheds working shift work round the clock cleaning suburban and country carriages while at same time each day doing my train working papers by correspondence. After 2 months and had passed the basic porter's entrance exams Porters1 and 2, and Train working part1 and part2, then passed "tickets". I was then put into porter's uniform at the Adelaide Station (Hector Goodman was the Station Master on my shift, nice bloke) as was then qualified enough to work on the Suburban Red Hen railcars collecting tickets. That was quite an interesting time. In November 1963 the rules school caught up, so did last 9 weeks through the Institute school till qualified.  
Click HERE to view the "Certificate of Competency". 

When I had finally passed all the required train working examinations in January 1963 as there were a total of 12 exams to pass with the South Australian Railways to become fully qualified in all train working rules and duties. Three position signaling and Westinghouse air brake I left those the very last, as these exams were a little harder and I did these exams through the railway school that was running by then. Working on the suburban "Redhens" ticket collecting gave me good insight into the 3 position signalling as between collections I'd ask the drivers to explain what each signal meant and why. So that made it a little easier to understand when at the railway school. I was fully qualified by January 1963 within 8 months of joining the S.A.R.

Once qualified, I was asked, no, was told in uncertain terms that I had to take a country position, and was given 6 country locations I could chose from. I took a transfer to Jamestown, which is 210 Kms North of Adelaide in the Mid North of South Australia as a station porter. Most fellow railwaymen stated to me then, "You'll be sorry" you will work your arse off there but to this day I never ever regretted the move. Shifted to Jamestown in April 1963 there was a lot of shunting carried out with the main line engines. Jamestown was on the main narrow gauge Peterborough Division which ran from Cockburn on the S.A./ N.S.W. border, (near Broken Hill) to Peterborough thence through Jamestown onto Port Pirie. The main loading was the Silver, Lead, and Zinc concentrates from the Broken Hill mines railed to the Port Pirie Smelters. It was all Narrow Gauge track 3' 6". At Jamestown we worked 3 shifts around the clock, except Sundays, odd times trains would run Sunday evenings as well. When I first started work at Jamestown it was ALL steam trains made up of Bayer Garratt's 4-8-2 + 2-8-4 and "T" class 4-8-0 engines, and later in 1964 came the first of the 830 class diesels.

I had spent my childhood around steam, now I was finally was let loose with trains, and I loved every minute of it. Jamestown was a reducing station for the notorious Belalie North bank.  Was a 1:60 grade virtually straight off the Jamestown ashpit towards Belalie North, then down the other side 1:80 to Yongala, then about 6 miles across flat country to Peterborough, the main Depot. All UP (that is towards Peterborough) steam trains took on water at Jamestown and reduced excess loading for the Belalie North bank. Every second day or so an engine and brake van (guards van) would be sent down from Peterborough to pick the excess loading, usually empty bogie ore trucks (auto couplers) and any four wheeled Pyrites trucks (hook couplers). All the ore wagons had automatic couplings fitted, and all other local loading had hook type couplings and side chains, so we had to use a very heavy auto coupling adapter, see illustration real finger busters that fitted onto the hook couplings so the automatic couplings could couple to the hook loading. All hook loading was ALWAYS marshalled behind the auto coupling loading and had a limited tonnage of 600 tons. 

Lot of shunting went on with nearly every train, and 95% of the time we were always shunting with very long strings of wagons as the hook local loading was always behind the automatic couplings at rear of the train.  I was at Jamestown for seven years and the last five years the Goodwin Alco 830 class diesels appeared, but we still had mixed Steam and Diesel right up till the line was closed down completely on 9th January 1970 and replaced with the Sydney - Perth 4' 8½" standard gauge track became operational. A very sad day for me personally, like I lost a very close family member. The S.A.R was great railway to be with, but the narrow gauge was like the icing on the cake so to speak. Many others who worked on this line have told me they felt the same. The last 12 months or more 1968/69 the Garratts came back into their own as the diesels were being taken off the narrow gauge to use elsewhere. Jamestown these days the only trains to stop are to shunt grain trains with a shunt movement down to the local wheat silos opposite where the old Narrow Gauge station is, now a Museum. The new Standard Gauge rail track bypassed Belalie North, out around Mannanarie some 19kms north of Jamestown and the 3' 6" Narrow Gauge track over Belalie North is now as though it never existed, only in pictures and memories. 

I had a drive of the Garratts quite a few times during those 7 years, (not officially of course). The drivers who I knew personally and got on very well with, when I knew they were on the down trains, that is towards Port Pirie, when I was off duty. I would get on in the cab at Jamestown and go to the cross at either Caltowie or Gladstone, where the Peterborough crews would then change over with the Port Pirie crews, and as soon as we would change trains and were ready to head back to Peterborough, I would at times get to  drive back to Jamestown (under supervision of course) as it was all basically uphill with engine working hard. This was, and still is, the real highlight of my life to have one's hand on that throttle of a Beyer Garratt. Wonderful, a never forgotten and a once in a lifetime experience.

I witnessed the closure of the 3' 6" Narrow Gauge as on the 9th January 1970, when I said goodbye to the last steam train Garratt 401. and on the Monday morning 12th January 1970 we started out in the big paddock of the new 4' 8½" Standard Gauge station. Stayed on in Jamestown till end of May 1970, relieved at Peterborough for few weeks while they were sorting out of the Standard gauge yard, then I put in for a transfer to Mount Gambier 5' 3" Broad Gauge and started there on 1st June 1970 as an Assistant Shunter, 3 months later as a Supervising Shunter. I'd have preferred to have gone to Port Lincoln as an assistant Shunter but that was a hard to get slotted in over there. Most shunters usually went on to be a guard or higher, but I never wanted to be a Guard as I did never fancy those tucker box jobs and staying in barracks. Around 1990 the Railway (Australian National) was diminishing, as it was furiously shedding staff like a bad case of dandruff, and A.N. was giving everyone a very hard time to get us out of the job by any cheap means.

One blessing was that we were fortunate that in February 1987 we bought our Railway House from the railways (at market value too, not cheap handout) we were living in as I could see the writing was on the wall, that the job was getting iffy. It was not "IF", but, "WHEN" this will finally happen. Progress was catching up with me again and this time it was heading towards getting pushed out of the job, or, take a shift to Adelaide, (Yuk) which also would have had no further job prospects either anyway. For me, it would have been like getting out of the frying pan into the fire, so to speak.  So in late April 1992 I took the voluntary redundancy package and got out of the job on my own terms. The S.E. line here was finally closed down 3 years later on 12th April 1995. The Mount Gambier history is another story, but nothing really did ever match those great years I had on the S.A.R Narrow Gauge. A big extended family is only way I could describe it. Broad gauge was a slight different baby in character.

Yes, I can still hear the Garratt's ghostly sounds of No 108 up through freight taking a drink at the Jamestown water column at 5 or 6am on a heavy frosty still morning at the crack of dawn. Can still see the steam rising up from all around the Garratt, its smoke drifting high into the heavens, the whining of the steam headlight generator, watching the engineman with his oil can going around checking the engine rods. The fireman with his foot on the water column spout filling the tender, the crisp clang as the fireman let the water column spout swing back away from the engine. Then the steam pressure building up ready to head off, the sounding of the Garratts whistle saying, "we are ready to go folks" and then hearing the Garratt's whistle echoing all around from off the surrounding low lying hills that surrounds Jamestown. The Guard then waving his green flag, or at times a sandwich to say okay to go. 

Then,,,,, the hissing of steam shooting out both sides of the engine some 100 yards each side, first at the front of engine, then the rear of engine and slowly the the engine moves and one hears the empty ore wagons as the coupling slack is taken up all the way to the guards brake van. The guard waving 2nd right and the engine now starting to build up to a tremendous roar as the Garratt unleashes her mighty power and she moved off with a roar as she struggled proudly out the yard and round the curve with black smoke billowing high into the sky (what a wonderful sight and sound) and getting stuck into the notorious Belalie bank and after 10 minutes or so, then she slowly disappeared around the hill curve and out of sight still hearing her roaring.... Yes, gone, but definitely not forgotten by those who witnessed this first hand.  That itself was a memorable experience to be taken in everytime I saw it. I would often get told off by odd Train Controllers because I was always about 10 to 15 minutes late booking the train out, but I always made up good excuses so I could savor the experience. This was one of life's very pleasurable moments and yes I got paid to stand, listen, watch, and enjoy it all everytime. 

Peterborough itself employed a lot of employees, heard it once said, there were some 700 plus in its hey days. My wife and I re-visited Peterborough in November 2000 and was totally shocked as it was totally deserted of railway employees. Was told then that only ONE employee who does a track inspection run. How sad it was in 2003 was then told there is no rail employees at all. But that's what in today's language it is called PROGRESS............... or,,,,, is it really. 

For those of us who were fortunate to serve on the S.A.R. Peterborough Narrow Gauge division, it was a very special way of life, now all gone forever into history and now only precious memories, rail pictures and sounds on a hard drive these days. 

Heading into history.  (pic: unknown)

Now-a-days just about every trace of the old Narrow Gauge track etc is now gone, one would hardly know the narrow gauge ever existed these days. The old Jamestown railway station and Goods shed is all that remains at Jamestown, as both are now  museum pieces. Only the standard gauge track is visible at Jamestown, that now traverses the Australian Continent from Sydney in NSW, to Perth in WA. One can even now also travel from Sydney to Melbourne, then to Adelaide, onto Perth, or even to Alice Springs and onto Darwin, all on one gauge, Standard 4' 8½in. But all said and done this will never be nowhere near as great an experience as those GREAT steam narrow gauge days, a very special era in a time now long gone by..... and I consider myself very, very fortunate to have had an opportunity to participate in a small part of it.

Added info: As at 2004 the once new Jamestown standard gauge station and goods shed and offices built in 1969 have now been totally demolished and removed said because of vandalism. Jamestown standard gauge station is now, but an open paddock with just a siding to service the silos.

My first (unofficial) ENGINE DRIVE of a Bayer Garratt

Here I would like to share my very first memorable experience of actually being allowed to sit in the driver's seat and drive one of these Beyer Garratt engines. The first drive from Caltowie back to Jamestown had great impact on me.... Might say in one way was the highlight of my life......... When I came to Mount Gambier later I raced two speedboats for 10 years very successfully, but that very first drive of a Garratt was the absolute tops.

This particular day in Spring 1964 I went for a cab ride on a down train No 275 hauled with Bayer Garratt travelling from Peterborough to Port Pirie. All Peterborough and Port Pirie crews worked trains to the cross of each other and returned to their home stations. The Down train 275 to Port Pirie crossed another Up train 274 to Peterborough ( remember uneven numbers for Down trains, even numbers for Up trains) with the Garratt at Caltowie.

Caltowie was the next station on from Jamestown towards Port Pirie only some 7 miles, but it would take about 25 minutes to get to Caltowie, (virtually down hill) and it would take some 30mins to come from Caltowie to Jamestown. Uphill all the way, except for a one short down hill run at Slattery's hill, then run up into the Jamestown yard. When we got to Caltowie we changed over with the crew of 274 UP train from Port Pirie, as this was the normal procedure. On the trip to Caltowie I commented a couple of times as to what it would be like being in the driver's seat, driving one of these mighty Bayer Garratts.

Here engine 400 hauling train 275 entering the Passing siding at Caltowie, with Garratt 406 heading train 274 sitting on the Main line. 
The train crews including the guards would both change over trains, and return home to their own depots. 
The cross usually took place at Caltowie or Gladstone, sometimes even at Jamestown.

After the crew change completed train 275 was off on its way to Port Pirie, and we were all now settled in on train 274 ready to head back to Peterborough, the crew had their 20 minutes crib (meal break) and then the engineman said to me "Johnny, how would you like to drive this train back to Jamestown". "Really", I said with eyes the size of saucers, thinking he was joking. He said, "yes really" I was totally stunned, this was the last thing I expected. With that, the driver got out of his seat and said "okay Johnny, she's all yours. I'll tell you what to do" as I climbed onto the drivers seat, and the awe,,,,,,, of just looking down the length of this steaming beasty engine was just fantastic in itself and I was now going to finally get to drive it. WOW........... well not let loose totally, under supervision of course. The engineman told me a few things as to what to do and to look out for. So here I was sitting in the engineman's seat now, a dream come true, and as I looked around to the fireman, he was grinning at me like a Cheshire cat. Can still see this like it was only yesterday, not 40 years ago, such was all this imprinted on my mind. Now I was looking back down the train for the Guard at the rear of the train of equal to about 90 four wheeled vehicles, it was a full load for the Belalie Bank out of Jamestown, no reducing needed.

I sounded the whistle as we were ready to go. The guard appeared and looked out of his guards van and waved his flag (well his hand) to tell let us it was okay for us to go. We already had the correct staff for the Caltowie - Jamestown section, (the most important thing) so I waved back to him, at same time gave the engine's whistle a quick tug (nice sound) to acknowledge the guard and that we were about to move off. Released the brakes, the sound of the air compressor pumping, wound the wheel forward, hiss, hiss, hiss, hiss to set the direction and stroke. Winding this Garratt wheel forward and backwards would be hard work if shunting a lot. Now I understood why the driver would get upset at times when trying to place sheep vans behind a big string of loaded ore wagons to a side loading sheep ramp that had to be placed spot on. One only had about 2" space each side.

Now this was the best bit......... reaching forward I put my hand on that long regulator lever, squeezed the regulator set lever on the main lever, and tugged the lever towards me a fraction and now it all now started to happen. It was like the engine took a deep breath and then we were beginning to move and slow enough to gently take up all the slack up of all the couplings on every wagon behind the engine back to the guards van. Being on the ground doing shunting operations I only knew all too well about the slack in couplings and what damage it can do by being too over enthusiastic on the throttle, especially a Garratt. Also as not to jerk the Guard around in the Guards van at the back of the train as the slack is taken up between all the couplings down through the whole train. Some Guards over the years were badly hurt again through an over enthusiastic driver not thinking about this, especially in a hurry to get home.

The sound was fantastic, this enormous steam power under you, you can feel it up through the seat of your pants and your whole body, the feeling to have with your hand of that throttle, to feel all this steaming horse power under your bum through your body. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck was standing up. I could hear the steam power on at the front first, and then the steam power on at the back (drive wheels at both ends, as Garratts steams both ends) as we got going, then we were starting to really roar, as we started gathering a bit of speed all 10 to 15mph of it. As the Garratt started to get a little speed, the engine was now beginning to synchronize into one gigantic roar. I remember looking out the window down towards the fire box at one point and you could see, even in broad daylight, the fire (oil fired) leaping out keeping in rhythm with the engine, it was like a huge synchronized orchestra and you were the conductor. I do not think there is anything like this on earth to match this. 

At night while on duty I would stand on the Jamestown station platform as 482 (9pm) or 108 (5am) would come "roaring" up the hill from Caltowie into the Jamestown yard, a magnificent sight of this firebox at night from a distance was really something to witness and to hear when these engines in full flight with a full load, it's mind boggling stuff. I've had an odd drive of "T" class steam as well and a few diesels, including a railcar over my time, but nothing, no nothing, NOTHING literally compared to this. It's like "WOW". Even tearing across the water in my Hydroplane at 84mph did not quite touch this wonderful experience.

Here I was, it was a warm spring afternoon about 1pm, with my hand on the regulator and this beast roaring its head off and hearing this mighty Garratt's engine's heart pounding away and the steam oily smell,,,, of the steam engine, nice. As I kept looking around at the driver and his fireman they were ginning at me as they could easily see I was really for want of a better saying, " over the moon" doing this. The whole trip to Jamestown was 95% uphill, and took some 30 minutes. Coming up the hill into Jamestown the distant Permissive signal was off (meaning OK to proceed) I closed the regulator off a bit and let the train's momentum carry us on, the home absolute signal was off (meaning OK to enter the yard for the UP main) a blow of the whistle (one long, one short, one long), for the main railway crossing from Adelaide to Orroroo and up over the crossing we went into the yard.

The look on the station clerk's face as I exchanged the electric staff with him. Another slight touch of the regulator up the yard a bit to ease the train into the yard, for it was uphill right to the very entrance of the yard. Then close off the regulator, an small application of the train brakes and the train starts to slow as we approach the water tower on the ash pit to take on water for that major climb up the 1:60 Belalie North bank. Okay, I miss timed a bit and stopped a tad short. Released the train brake and a touch of the regulator and slowly edged the engine to the exact water point for fireman to take on water, closed off the regulator, applied the train brakes a little, and came to a nice stop. WOW !....... I could hardly believe I had actually done that..... Of course with the very helpful pointers from the engineman. I asked the guard how was the trip over from Caltowie he said was fine. I was happy.

Well I can tell you this first trip I will never forget, and am always very thankful to that crew for allowing me the chance to actually drive the Garratt engine. Still feel quite excited even when I think about it, or listen to the Garratt's recorded sounds. After that trip, I did manage a few more Garratt drives, a couple of times from Gladstone back to Jamestown.

These days I may be retired and out of the Railways, but since MSTS  MicroSoft Train Simulator  was released in May 2001, I now get to drive and still shunt with trains on my computer.  Since Train Simulator was released the Simulator has come a long way and now there is some good South Australian and Australian routes and S.A.R. and Victorian Rollingstock to re-live those good old golden train days of the past.  

INFO 2010:   Now many thanks to MSTS and to a South Australian Route and Engine/Rollingstock builder Allan Lownsborough, (sadly now since passed away) one will be able to drive full load T's and Garratts from Jamestown up to and over Belalie North to Yongala and onto Peterborough and vice versa, also to Quorn.  
The old computer era has now allowed one to relive those Narrow Gauge experiences, though in virtual reality some 40 years later. It's great to be RIDING THOSE NG RAILS again and driving those loved NG engines as well.

THE  MIGHTY  GARRATT 4-8-2 + 2-8-4

401 at Belalie North 1954 in her fresh paint job of "invisible green".  (pics: unknown)
(Note hook couplings and side chains. A little later in 1962/63 these were changed over to auto-couplings)

Want to hear the realistic sound of the mighty 400 class Bayer Garratt.
To hear the sound as realistic as it really was in those great steam days"
Then  turn  your  sound  volume  well  up
as these were,,, very noisy engines under heavy load.
This sound recording was taken standing in railway yard as Garratt starts off and goes past microphone and heads off into the distance.

Sound file:  1.4megs

 South Australian Railways Narrow gauge Bayer Garratt 4-8-2 + 2-8-4
( MP3 file is 1.4megs in size, so may take a bit of time to load-up with a 56k modem.)

CLICK to hear Garratt engine sounds and go back to 1964.

Garratts working in reverse was not normal procedure. Because of new standard gauge preparations, the Port Pirie turntable was out of use in very late 1960's, so Garratts had to travel back to Peterborough in reverse, they could be turned at Gladstone though.
(pic: unknown)

ASG's

Two 300 class ASG's Nos. 303 and 304 at Peterborough in January 1953.  (pic: unknown)

The S.A.R at Peterborough needed motive power to fill in till the new 400 class Garratts arrived in 1953. To fill in 6 condemned Australian Standards Garratts (ASG) were purchased from Western Australia to keep the freight moving. These engines briefly fulfilled a useful function, but were quickly scrapped on delivery of the new 400 class Bayer Garratts.