Peterborough
in its heyday had around 700 employees, now only 1 person
with a road car fitted with special rail wheels to run the
rail length for any faults.
Loco
workshops and round house at Western end of Peterborough.
Track
seen on left is the main standard gauge line to Port Pirie.
Loco
Roundhouse now Steamtown Historical Society.
To left is the main Standard Gauge line.
To right Steamtown's narrow gauge.
Western
crossing looking east at station yard.
Left of chain fence:
Steamtown narrow gauge track. Right: Standard gauge
track
The
Standard Gauge platform.
Steamtown's
platform. (not used these days)
Train
Control for old Peterborough Division
Peterborough
Station
Platform with station behind it.
Looking East from Steamtown's narrow gauge platform
Old Goods shed
Cab of a "y" class steam engine on display
Wheels and rods of "Y" class on display
Plague at Eastern crossing in my
view should read:
The towns people held a sad ceremony here for the total trashing of the railways at Peterborough.
Eastern crossing looking West
Peterborough
09-07-2010
(Barry
Simmons)
Peterborough
09-07-2010
(Barry
Simmons)
...
click on the small picture to view a much larger picture ...
Peterborough station
Eastern end of Peterborough station
Peterborough signal cabin with station behind
Looking west along main line platform
The totally deserted Peterborough station just rotting.
Eastern
end of platform with subway to station
Out the eastern end of station was the broad - standard bogie exchange and
marshalling yards.
Looking South
The old broad/standard gauge bogie exchange. The broad gauge
loading from Adelaide came in from the other side.
This side was Standard Gauge.
Looking North
The old broad/standard gauge bogie exchange. The standard
gauge marshalling yard was other side of the bogie exchange.
This side was broad gauge.
To the left was all marshalling standard gauge yard to that
shed seen in distance. The Bogie exchange was to the
far left behind those trees
Looking down main line to Peterborough station.
This item was in Steamtowns holding yard.
No idea what the carriage was.
This
is an original ore wagon. Note it still has the hook
couplings which were used till about 1954, then all
converted to automatic couplings.
Looking off turntable of old loco sheds.
2 gauges on this track 5'.3" and 3'.6"
...
click on the small picture to view a much larger picture ...
Now a
quick trip out to the old Dowd's Hill tunnel just north of
Peterborough
The old narrow gauge tunnel was just to my right of
this shot. For the standard gauge a huge
cutting was made alongside instead of the tunnel
Further over past tunnel is the main Peterborough -
Broken Hill highway. Typical land around the area.
If
your a Peterborough Narrow Gauge steam buff.
Listen
very carefully, you can just hear the ghostly roar of
a mighty Garratt coming from Ucolta.
NORTHERN tunnel entrance
coming from Broken Hill.
SOUTHERN tunnel entrance
coming from Peterborough
Here
is your rare chance to hear the Bayer Garratt going through the Dowd's
Hill tunnel
TURN YOUR SOUND UP HIGH,
higher the better.
THESE WONDERFUL STEAMERS WERE
VERY OUT SPOKEN ENGINES
The
opening sound is a Beyer Garratt coming from
Ucolta approaching the Northern end of the
Dowd's Hill tunnel working at full throttle.
Then the Garratt roars through the tunnel and
you then hear it roar out the Southern end of
the tunnel and after a short time as the
train's loading is over the hill, the
engineman shuts the throttle off and engine
starts to drift, you then hear the clanking of
the rods. I think the Garratt was saying, phew
that was a good slog, now drift down into the
Peterborough yard for a well earned rest.
For
56k modem users the sound file is 2.1 meg.
Southern Entrance
Southern Entrance
The tunnel was not all that long. The grade from
Broken Hill entered tunnel other end with engines
roaring as they came out this southern side the
grade leveled out and it was practically down hill
into Peterborough. The engines would close the
throttle. Quite a roar through the tunnel though.
Southern entrance tunnel on the Peterborough side.
Southern Entrance looking South towards Peterborough
Hard to believe the ore trains roared through here.
S.A.R
Peterborough Guard, Danny van den Ende taking
a run through Jamestown on 274, December 1968
I
met Danny at Peterborough on 4th May 2005 and
yes, he's still smiling at 70 years old.
A
stroke of luck for me on this trip. It turned
out that in same street as my wife's Auntie and
Uncle where we stayed, Danny van den Ende
lives just a few houses down the street. It was
great to meet him again after 37 years from the old narrow gauge days of
the 1960's. We had a beer and talked and had some
laughs
about old narrow gauge days for about 3 hours. He was always
smiling and he still does. Note the two
pictures.
Special
Garratt picture
Garratt
409 at Nantabibbie taken by the late George Bishop.
It was probably taken in the mid fifties at a guess, but
certainly before Christmas 1962 as the loco still has hook
couplers.
NARROW GAUGE STEAM FILM FOOTAGE
(Thanks
William 409)
A nice short piece of old NG steam footage from
1969.
Opening
shot Garratt 400 travelling from Yongala toward Peterborough.
T Class on the Hawker line.
Couple other short shots of Garratt action. To View WMV film
footage of Bayer Garratt & T class action.
To download WMV file to hard drive:
"Right
Click",
then "Save
Target As..." File
size
3.2 megs
Quality is not overly the best, but this is far way
better than nothing at all.
YES, THE GOOD OL DAYS.
