Sixties Steam in Australasia

zb. Phase Out

Tue Feb 26 2008

Tuesday 26 February 2008: The end of the Sixties was the end of steam in Australasia, but for a few small and isolated pockets. _Trains_ editor David P. Morgan recorded the ending of steam in North America during the Fifties, and in 1968 he ran a sad photo essay titled _It_s dying out where it all began_ to mark the ending of steam in Britain. And so it was in the Antipodes; hundreds of enthusiasts were wondering _what next, what else?_ Like many, I cast my eye over the other parts of the transport world; trams, steam tugs and ferries, paddle steamers, and even radial engined airliners. But the great days of those machines were almost over too. Faced with a similar dilemma, the American locomotive photographer Joe G. Collias had said _The world looks glum to me; think I_ll end it all and get married._ I joined the railways! A decade of chasing steam to its last outposts greatly enriched my education and was a wonderful adventure. 1970 saw the beginning of a long railway career, and a few years later an even greater adventure began. With my fifth grandchild on the way, that wonderful adventure continues. It has been a year since my first collection was posted in this gallery and this collection is the conclusion. I have tried to use the railway language and measures of the Sixties, with some effort. It no longer comes naturally to me to call wagons _trucks_ and measure in feet and miles. But anyone wishing to unlock the past must learn to think in its values, and so with steam. To understand those great machines it is essential to know the units used by their designers. Viewers unfamiliar with old units might find footrule.com an invaluable bookmark. Over the years I gathered a small collection of pictures going back to the earliest days of railways, and now this project has concluded, viewers may like to keep an eye on my associated gallery, _Railway Scrapbook _ Steam Before 1950_.

Published in Sixties Steam in Australasia

a. The Sixties Scene

Sat Jan 26 2008

Saturday 26 January 2008: The Sixties witnessed many transitions in the transport world. Steam to diesel, timber to steel carriages, four wheel trucks to bogie wagons, jointed to welded rail, trams to buses, propliners to jetliners. The decade was a troubled one; most of us faced the Vietnam ballots. My birthday wasn_t drawn, thankfully. But by and large it was an optimistic and prosperous time, ending with the Moon landings. As steam disappeared the music changed too. Right up to the early Sixties the walking rhythm of both the horse and the iron horse could be heard in music. But the new generation probably never understood what Chuck Berry meant when he sang about a backwoods guitarist _strumming with the rhythm that the drivers made._ The _big wheel_ action disappeared in the Fifties, and thereafter steam was not so easily seen in the big cities. Not many remember the streamlined S class on the _Spirit_, or the three cylindered exhaust of _Heavy Harry_ on a fast goods. The triple headed coal trains struggling up from Lithgow with another Standard Goods pushing behind the van were already a legend by my time. The SAR_s high wheelers were gone; the 4-4-0 S with their 6_6_ driving wheels and the big Webb Pacifics with their 6_3_ drivers. The only evidences of steam across the Nullarbor were the huge tenders of the Commonwealth Railways C class, stored at Port Augusta. The very first true Garratts had been laid aside in Tasmania and Western Australia, and in New Zealand the Rimutaka Incline with its central Fell rail had been replaced by a tunnel. But much remained, and many young fellas joined the race to catch the last of steam, just as a generation before many had signed on to crew the last of the windjammers in the grain races to South Australia. It was practically all over by the end of the decade. Steam disappeared from revenue service first on the South Australian broad gauge (1966), but the last odd jobs lingered on the other systems until 1970 (QR, SAR ng and TGR), 1971 (WAGR, NZR), 1972 (VR), and 1973 (NSWGR).

Published in Sixties Steam in Australasia

za. Uncommon Trams

Wed Jan 9 2008

Wednesday 9 January 2008: The electric tramways of Australia and New Zealand were as diverse as the railways, with influences from Europe and America, and much local development. But most were abandoned before I got to them, and even then, I was saving my precious film for steam locomotives. So I have no pictures of Sydney trams, although I traveled on the last remaining line, or the Brisbane system, which was a fixture during most of my visits. That_s a pity, as Brisbane had some memorable trams, and even more memorable Conductors, in their French Foreign Legion hats. But I rode Melbourne_s huge fleet of W class trams many times a week (and still see them frequently), and it never occurred to me that even in Melbourne, things would one day change. What attention I afforded trams was limited to the uncommon, especially the Victorian provincial cities of Ballarat and Bendigo, which were refuges for some delightful ex-Melbourne single truckers and maximum traction bogie cars. These were so rare that photographs were definitely warranted! The sole remaining tram in Adelaide was Australia_s only Interurban, running for most of its length on the old South Terrace Railway, so it warranted some film also. By the end of the decade, as steam was getting hard to find, I made an effort to photograph the few _uncommon_ trams still to be found, and soon after that caught the last of the prop-liners and flying boats, but that is another story. So as an addendum to Sixties Steam in Australasia, these are the trams that briefly caught my attention by the way. Examples of almost every class of tram ever run in Australia have been preserved, especially in Victoria, which has no less than five operational tram museums, with over one hundred cars, most of them operational. To save space in the captions, I have used the following acronyms: Hawthorn Tramway Trust (HTT), and Prahran & Malvern Tramway Trust (P&MTT), which with some others were the precursors of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (M&MTB). Ex-Melbourne cars were sold to the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV), which from 1930 took over the provincial tramways in Geelong, Ballarat and Bendigo. Adelaide was a great tram building city in the early years. Its tramway was the Municipal Tramway Trust (MTT).

Published in Sixties Steam in Australasia

y. Rail Motors

Sun Dec 23 2007

Sunday 23 December 2007: The focus of this gallery is steam, but only the most one eyed devotee could ignore some of the other delights of the railway scene. Chief among these were the rail motors, those trains-in-one-car which the Railways had been playing around with since the 1880_s in a quest for economy on lightly used services. The Victorian Railways were the most determined experimenters, with three different steam and petrol designs operational before the Great War. These included a couple of knife nosed McKeen cars, complete with porthole windows in their steel bodies. The QR bought some McKeens too. But these early experiments were unpromising. The breakthrough came in the Twenties, with the AEC chassis (based on the famous London General bus), coupled with a specially trained group of _Motormen_ to drive and maintain them. Steam crews were kept away! Designs rapidly improved, with Brill and Electro Motive Corporation cars being imported by the SAR and VR before the Depression. With huge slow revving six cylinder Winton petrol engines, these must have sounded wonderfully guttural! They were still an aural treat with Detroit diesels. One well known railwayman used to stand on Flinders Street No1 Centre platform every afternoon to watch and listen to the 3.58pm Leongatha depart! In Tasmania, the TGR ran Sentinal steam railmotors into the Fifties, painted silver with red flames! Just another jewel locked beyond my reach across Bass Strait! I developed a fascination for carriages at an early age, and had an article about the Mann Boudoir cars published in an early ARE magazine while still at school. The incorporation of an engine and driving cab in a carriage was a cert to catch my imagination, and a couple of my teenage drawings are included as proof of the flights of fancy one can make when unencumbered by Economics! The whole gallery is sprinkled with carriages and railmotors, but this collection is a sampler of what I saw, and sometimes even sought out by the way, in my quest to mark the passing of the steam era.

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x. Bitter Sweet Farewells

Sat Dec 8 2007

Saturday 8 December 2007: I entered the full-time workforce about the same time steam was retiring. During the Sixties most of my student money went on finding the _real_ steam action, but as the decade drew to a close, the steam hold-outs were few indeed. But the railways still had enough steam to power some amazing special tours, and the railway societies were busy arranging them from Perth to Auckland. From short excursions on rail cars to major safari_s over three day long weekends, complete with sleeping and dining cars, the Sixties saw hundreds of specials. Among the most ambitious and most romantic were those organised by Dean Harvey in South Australia. He had plenty to work with _ three railway gauges, two systems, locomotives ranging from Shark nosed 4-8-4_s to diminutive Colonial Moguls, carriages of all shapes and sizes, from the most luxurious to the most spartan, a tantalizing mixture of British and American practice, and countryside from well watered hills through beautiful vineyards to vast empty deserts _ all within a few hundred miles of Adelaide. He also had willing officials at the South Australian and Commonwealth Railways and the Silverton Tramway Company. And, the SAR_s Refreshment Services Branch was arguably the best in the country and provided excellent provender. I was wealthy enough to travel on a couple of tours arranged to farewell the Peterborough Division narrow gauge and the southern remnant of the old Central Australian Railway, but there were many others I missed. Although a lifetime resident of Melbourne, I have a special affection for South Australia. So without denigrating the efforts of others, this is my appreciation of Dean_s efforts. Enjoy!

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w. Narrow Gauge in Victoria

Mon Nov 19 2007

Monday 19 November 2007: Victoria was a bastion of broad gauge, although it was a close thing. Parliament nearly fell for Fairlie_s propaganda in 1871, but at the eleventh hour was talked out of narrow gauge by the Engineer-in-Chief. But narrow gauge died hard, and twenty five years later four isolated 2_6_ gauge branch lines were built. Only one survived into the Sixties, but as it died one of the others was resurrected; the famous Puffing Billy Railway. Accompanying these lines were the private timber tramways that proliferated in the Great Dividing Range. They were built to any old gauge, almost always narrow, and used any kind and condition of rail. But they had been wiped out on Black Friday 1939, when a third of Victoria went up in flames. A couple of mines also had narrow gauge railways. The brown coal open cuts in Gippsland were served by an impressive 900mm gauge electrified railway, but Australian Cement Limited near Geelong was the only significant user of steam into the _Sixties_. Their 3_6_ gauge railway offered a feast of unusual engines, with a friendly workforce glad to make it accessible. The three mile line also boasted Victoria's longest and steepest tunnel; 4,600 feet on a 1 in 37 gradient! There was a lovely timber trestle bridge across the Moorabool River to cap it off. Like many lads of my era, visits to the cement works at Fyansford were many, and work as a volunteer with the PBPS on _The Little Railway_ provided a training ground that launched railway careers.

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v. Westland Coal and Timber

Mon Nov 12 2007

Monday 12 November 2007: The Westland province of New Zealand_s South Island was connected to the east coast by the Midland line, a spectacular crossing of the Southern Alps. At the summit was a five mile tunnel, and more often than not, as the train emerged from the western portal it was raining. The line was surrounded by jungle! Only 12 months before my visit to Westland I had been in New Guinea, the third part of Australasia, which was at that time still administered from Canberra. There were no railways in New Guinea, but the flying made up for that! I found myself on the equator in really high mountains covered in dense vegetation and drenched in 300 inches of rain in a year. Now way to the south at latitude 42_ it looked almost the same, but there was snow on the peaks and 4-8-2_s in the valleys! The old Westland Province is naturally rich in timber, and also in coal. The NZR tapped these resources with a network of branch lines that were worked almost entirely by steam engines, many of them over fifty years old. Elderly tank engines and superannuated Pacifics gathered the coal, sawn timber and logs from branch lines, some with gradients as steep as 1 in 25, requiring a central Fell rail to assist braking. Then three times a day trains departed Greymouth for the east coast. They came steaming up the narrow Otira River valley drawn by double headed J_s, and stormed through the platform at Otira with regulators wide open, crossing into the arrival siding and working hard almost to the buffers. With the gear in reverse they rolled back into the level yard, where triple headed Eo class electrics waited for the even steeper climb into the Arthur_s Pass tunnel. Even as I marveled at these operations a ship was sailing south from Japan, its deck loaded with locomotives from Mitsubishi Industries that would end it all. Riding goods trains in that rugged and temperate jungle was a wonderful experience, made possible by very welcoming crews. There was an ARHS/NZRLS special touring the South Island at much the same time as my visit, which I hopped aboard a few times. By 1967 steam was getting scarce, and grand _last chance_ tours were part of the scene, so it features in some of this collection. But hand firing a lanky North British J class into the mountains with over 500 tons of coal and timber behind the tender was hard to beat!

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u. Great and Small in NSW

Mon Sep 24 2007

Monday 24 September 2007: Big steam was rare in Australasia, even on the standard and broad gauge systems. The strength of track and bridges was the main constraint, but short crossing loops and trucks with screw or chopper coupling limited the length and weight of trains. On selected routes a few locomotives over 220 tons were permitted. The VR had four such, the SAR had 10, but the NSWGR had 80! These were the ponderous 57 and 58 class Mountains, and the 42 magnificent 60 class Garratts. The Mountains barely made it to 1961, but the still new Garratts were active right through the decade, a few surviving into the Seventies. The NSWGR kept their best to the end! But if NSW had the greatest, it also had the smallest. Rails lighter than 60lb per yard were rare on the broad gauge VR and SAR systems, but NSW had lines laid to _pioneer_ standard, and some very steeply graded branches. The little engines of the Nineteenth Century were ideal for these jobs, and so they survived well into the Sixties. In the yard at Port Waratah, ninety year old Stephenson long-boiler 0-6-0_s built by Beyer Peacock could be seen side by side with 15 year old Garratts built by the same company; the heaviest locomotives ever operated in Australasia, and probably the heaviest ever built in Britain. What a contrast!

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t. Operation Phoenix Steam

Tue Aug 28 2007

Tuesday 28 August 2007: Railway rollingstock engineers have always been torn between innovation and standardisation. The trick is to know when to switch from innovation to standardisation, and vice versa. From the introduction of the DD in 1901 to the J in 1954, the VR was consistently wrong footed in this regard. The fairly ordinary DD and A2 class 4-6-0_s were adopted as standards and built in large numbers until the early 1920_s, so there was very limited scope for new designs during the Twenties and Thirties. Nevertheless, the VR designed and manufactured six new classes between 1922 and 1941, but none in numbers large enough to achieve significant economies. Only four of the impressive S class Pacifics were built and the truly great H class 4-8-4 had but one example. The real economies were achieved with the application of modern front end design to the large stud of existing engines, which enabled a significant acceleration of passenger schedules in 1936. After the War, there was another opportunity. The massive capital investment scheme publicised as _Operation Phoenix_ provided the funds to replace hundreds of clapped out engines, and the work done by the Rollingstock Branch in the Thirties had provided the basis for some good replacement designs. But instead of one new eight coupled design, they built three, all with the thoroughly outdated and restrictive standard of 55 inch driving wheels and short travel valve gear, and none with roller bearings. This condemned them to 50 mph maximum speed, and made them next to useless for passenger work. The R class with its 73 inch drivers was intended for passenger operations and was built in unnecessary numbers. They spent most of their short working lives hauling slow freight. Of the 216 steam locomotives built from 1940, not one could be considered a true _mixed traffic_ or _general purpose_ machine. The 25 L class electrics were a disappointment too. On the other hand, the diesel men really got it right! By 1960 the VR had a fleet of 81 Clyde/GM_s that was adequate for all important tasks on the system, and the most powerful steam classes had been withdrawn. Although steam lingered another eight years, Victorian enthusiasts had to look elsewhere to witness steam locomotives doing the things they were designed to do. Maybe if it had been otherwise I would have stayed nearer home, and missed so many great experiences across Australasia!

Published in Sixties Steam in Australasia

s. Steam to Southland

Fri Aug 10 2007

Friday 10 August 2007: The railway from Christchurch to Dunedin and Invercargill traversed the provinces of Canterbury, Otago and Southland and was the proving ground of some great locomotives. Constrained by the very narrow firebox dictated by the 3_6_ track gauge, the ten wheelers assigned to the Dunedin express could not develop enough horse power to improve the train schedule, especially burning poor grade Canterbury coal. The NZR_s Chief Mechanical Engineer from 1900 was A.L.Beattie, one of the great colonial engineers. Beattie needed a super ten wheeler, and conceived the notion of adding a trailing truck to support the big Wootten firebox and ashpan needed for burning low calorific coal. In 1901 he contracted the Baldwin Locomotive Works to build ten of these locomotives, and the long voyage across the Pacific gave the new 4-6-2 wheel arrangement its name. The new Q class was assigned the Dunedin Express, but Beattie wasn_t satisfied. As remote from Paris or London as it is possible to get, and before the aeroplane and radio, he was aware of Churchward_s experiments with De Glenn compounds on the Great Western Railway, and set about perfecting his Pacific. Outshopped from the NZR_s own Addington (Christchurch) Workshops in 1906, the four cylinder compound A class was a stunning locomotive, and further accelerated schedules on the South Island Main Trunk. That was good, so Beattie then applied the same logic to the 4-8-0, and two years later Addington produced the world_s first 4-8-2 _Mountain_ type, also a four cylinder De Glenn compound. But more was to come. Beattie had one of the A class Pacifics built as a two cylinder simple expansion engine, just to compare performance against the compounds, as Churchward had done. In 1909 this engine was fitted with one of the newfangled superheated boilers, only three years after the Churchward_s first experiments with Schmidt_s patent. The results were outstanding, and the next class of Pacifics was built to this arrangement. The Ab class of 1915 was claimed to be the first locomotive to produce one horse power for every 100lbs weight. Finished under the supervision of Chief Draftsman S.H. Jenkinson after Beattie_s retirement, it became the defining NZR locomotive, and held down the top job on the Invercargill Express for a generation. One can only wonder what the design offices in Australia thought about these developments, and what transpired at the ANZR Conferences! It was another two years before the NSWGR built an engine with a superheater, and some Australian systems waited until the 1920_s to adopt it. The narrow gauge systems, with the exception of the Tasmania, remained doggedly committed to the 4-8-0, and resisted the Pacific until the mid 1920_s. The Invercargill Express was upgraded in 1939 with new carriages a new bullet nosed 4-8-2_s. The rakish J class was a magnificent machine, and put up some impressive performances over the Canterbury Plains, with sprints over 70 mph when making up time. As more of these light Mountains were added after the War, the Ab was relegated to goods and branch line service, many remaining in service for over 50 years. The NZR initially devoted its dieselisation efforts to the more populous North Island, and by late 1967 the only diesels in the South Island were those on the Kaikoura Coast line north of Christchurch, and some shunters. Steam ruled elsewhere. There were 4-8-4_s in the Midlands, Mountains on the Plains, Pacifics in the hills and Tanks in the yards. After experiencing all the Australian 3_6_ gauge systems (except Tasmania), I was amazed at the speeds attained in New Zealand and the quality of their track. The locomotives were wonderful, the crews friendly and the scenery stunning. My visit in December 1967 was just in time. This is the end of an era on the South Island Main Trunk and its branches!

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r. Innovations in the West

Tue Jul 17 2007

Tuesday 17 July 2007: The small size and isolation of Perth compared with other cities might have made it a professional backwater, but when it came to Railways, the Western Australians were often found in the vanguard of change. In the locomotive department, they were early adopters of Walschaerts valve gear, Superheating and roller bearings on steam locomotives. They were one of the first customers for the new Beyer Garratt in 1911, and by 1930 were building some in their own Workshops. In 1949 they built a diesel electric train, with a power car that was almost a locomotive. The X class diesel electric built by Metropolitan Vickers of Manchester in 1954 was the world_s most powerful diesel within the limitation of a 10 ton axle load, but it threw oil about and gave a lot of trouble. In 1957 Midland Workshops converted a ten year old Pacific into an impressive Baltic tank to see if steam could maintain diesel railcar schedules on the Perth suburban lines. It certainly did, but it cost a lot to run! If sometimes their innovations went awry, more often than not they got it right. They became a very efficient outfit. But in the Sixties there were heaps of delicious incongruities on the WAGR! As late as 1969, they were meeting the very flash _Trans Australian Express_ at Kalgoorlie with the wonderful _Westland Express_. We heard howls of dismay from girls alighting from the superb air-conditioned cars of the Com Rails train when they saw their overnight accommodation for the run to Perth. Wooden bodied carriages with lift up windows and water bags hanging from the end platforms! But next morning they were having a ball, letting their hair fly from open windows and crossing from car to car on open platforms. Breakfast in the dining car was cooked on a wood fired range, and the fuel was stacked outside the kitchen on the open platform! By that time, the steep and tortuous Eastern Goldfields main line over the Darling Ranges had been abandoned in favour of a new double track, dual gauge line through the lovely Avon Valley. It was built as part of the inter-capital gauge standardization scheme, but was opened some years before the whole route to Kalgoorlie was finished. It was one of steam_s last holdouts in Australasia, as big green 3_6_ gauge MacArthur_s worked uphill on one thousand ton goods trains, passing brand new high horsepower GM_s coming downhill on standard gauge iron ore trains. It was quite a show!

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q. Quaint and Rattly Branch Lines

Wed Jun 27 2007

Wednesday 27 June 2007: The Queensland Railways public timetable included many tables for branch line services, all with a titles like _Mary Valley Branch_ or _Gayndah-Monto Branch_. The system was big by any standards, with the North Coast main line extended over 1,000 miles, and three inland railways of 500 to 600 miles each, plus oodles of branch lines. All this had to be financed by a small Treasury before the bonanza of coal and mineral royalties. Money was really tight. Whereas tracks on the standard and broad gauge systems were usually laid at the minimum with 60lb per yard rails, on the QR 50lb rail was common, and many branch lines were laid with 40lb rails. This placed severe restrictions on locomotive power, as a 9 ton axle load was tops, with some lines limited to 8 tons. Track condition kept speeds low, for not only were rails light, but ballast was rudimentary and the climate unforgiving. Over half the QR is within the tropics, and several lines reach well into the dry outback. They have more than their share of the _droughts and flooding rains_ which are our lot in this old land. With the exception of World War II, traffic density in Queensland was low, with almost no heavy hauls, so small engines were adequate. There were hundreds of little PB15_s as they were the only _go anywhere_ engine. The trouble is they couldn_t pull much, being only half the size of a small broad gauge 4-6-0. The 4-8-0 was adopted in 1903 and _perfected_ in 1920 with the superheated C17. These became favorites, the design also being adopted by the Commonwealth Railways as their NM class, one of which hauled the first train into Alice Springs. The QR built C17_s for 33 years; 227 of them! They also liked Pacifics. The first B18_ was outshopped by Ipswich Workshops in 1926, and thereafter the design was built until 1958. They were a tad bigger than the eight coupled C17, with an axle load of 12 tons (about half that of _Heavy Harry_). Not many branch lines could carry them! While Mechanical Branches in the rest of the systems were busy during the Thirties and Forties, Ipswich just tinkered with their two favourites. But eventually they had second thoughts, and before the steam era ended Beyer Peacock received orders for 30 very handsome and modern Garratts. Paradoxically, this collection of pictures made on half a dozen QR branch lines includes some of these big Garratts, which saw out their days hauling export coal; the Queensland resources boom began on a branch line behind steam. You needed a day or more for a trip on a Queensland branch line, and there were jokes aplenty about the trains. And what trains! Steam locomotives with pepper pot domes and sedan cabs, painted green, or brown, or black, or bright blue. Diesels painted white with sun visors, engine crews with waistcoats, station masters in pith helmets, carriages with ornate platform ironwork, brakevans with accommodation for cattle, and a public timetable with detailed and macabre instructions about the transport of corpses and coffins! And what other Railway had a locomotive classification like BB18_? It wasn_t called the Quaint and Rattly for nothing! An excellent online source of information about QR steam may be found at http://www.qrig.org/

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zc. What We Missed

Fri Jun 15 2007

Friday 15 June 2007: The second generation of enthusiasts who witnessed the end of steam was too young to experience some of the biggest, best, oldest and oddest. Some have dim memories of these locomotives in steam, but for most of us a rusting hulk on the scrap road was our only tangible link, and it was the photo_s and reminisces of the pre War generation that fired our imaginations. Some pictures from my scrap book by pre-war photographers are presented in the collection _Trans Australia before 1950_ which can be found in my separate Gallery _Railway Scrapbook - Steam Before 1950_ _ just click the link under _Other Galleries_ on the front page of this gallery. The gallery also includes a collection of stunning Canadian Pacific Steam in the Rockies.

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p. NSW Hill Climbers

Mon May 28 2007

Monday 28 May 2007: The colonists at Botany Bay found themselves surrounded by an escarpment so steep that it took 25 years to find a way across. The railway later followed this route over the Blue Mountains, necessitating long gradients of 1 in 30. South of Sydney it was the same story climbing the Southern Highlands (actually the rim of the same escarpment). Once over these obstacles, the Great Dividing Range stretches from Victoria to Queensland, and while not at all remarkable as mountains go, the funds available to the small population would only stretch to basic railways with minimal earthworks. So in every direction, the main lines extended for hundreds of miles with long climbs of 1 in 40 being the rule, not the exception. Some attempts were later made to ease some of these headaches, but there was never enough money to make a significant difference. The NSWGR therefore needed locomotives capable of sustained climbing on some of the world_s worst mainline gradients, but the track and bridges could not support heavy engines with high adhesive weight. For some decades standard British and American locomotives were imported, but none were ideal. The problem was solved by William Thow, the NSWGR Chief Mechanical Engineer. Headhunted from the South Australian Railways, and originally a London & North Western man, he had the Leeds firm of Dubs build a 4-6-0 to conquer the Adelaide Hills. The _R_ class was among the first of its type built in Britain, and he followed with the even bigger _P6_ class 4-6-0 for NSW, still in advance of the "Jones Goods" of the Highland Railway in Scotland. The firm of Beyer Peacock provided design assistance, and built them in their Manchester works. Soon Thow had them working on the _T_ class 2-8-0, probably the first _Consolidation" type made in Britain, and seven years in advance of Churchward_s 2-8-0 for the GWR. Nearly 800 hill climbing 4-6-0_s and 2-8-0_s to Thow_s basic design were working in NSW by the early 1920_s, and most continued into the Sixties. They were uncomplicated, rugged and easy to maintain, with big boilers to satisfy the high steam demands. Ironically, although South Australia lost Thow to NSW, his 4-6-0 and 2-8-0 were chosen for the trans-continental railway across the Nullabor, albeit with bigger tenders. The hill climbing _P_ also managed a heavy express all by itself at the moderate speeds permitted on the lightly ballasted desert track. This collection of steam in country NSW includes some of Thow_s engines (reclassified as the C32, D50, D53 and D55 classes), together with some by his successors, E.E.Lucy and Harold Young. They borrowed from British and American practice, but their products were not copies!

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o. The Yarra Valley Lines

Wed May 2 2007

Wednesday 2 May 2007: Two railways were built in the Yarra Valley, east of Melbourne. The infamous _Octopus Act_ of 1884 authorized the building of branch lines all over Victoria, like octopus tentacles. One of these was the 1888 extension of the Lilydale line to Healesville, at the foot of the Great Dividing Range. Under the guidance of Chairman of Commissioners Richard Speight, recruited from the Midland Railway in England, the new lines were built to high standards. The Healesville line had a tunnel (one of only nine on the Victorian Railways), and a timber trestle bridge between Yering and Yarra Glen that was over 7,000 feet (2 km) long. The cost of building these lines helped plunge Victoria into its worst ever Depression, and halted railway construction for nearly a decade. Lilydale was chosen as the junction of the Warburton line, which served the southern side of the valley. Completed in 1901 with lower engineering standards, there were fewer earthworks, more curves and more frequent changes in gradient. Both lines tapped the eucalypt forests in the mountains, and carried huge volumes of timber and firewood bound for Melbourne, then the largest city in Australasia. The Black Friday fires of 1939 ended all that, and the lines declined to servicing the valley's agriculture. By the early Sixties the writing was on the wall, and the Warburton line closed in 1965. The Sanitarium factory at Warburton (makers of the Weetbix breakfast cereal), then diverted their truck loads of wheat to Healesville, ironically helping to sustain that line for another sixteen years. Passenger services on both lines were taken over by 153hp Walker railcars in the early Fifties, with one motor and trailer for each line. These were adequate for the modest business, except on public holidays, when day trippers from Melbourne_s suburbs swelled patronage. The VR then sent a set of old carriages to Lilydale to augment the railcars. Two K or J class 2-8-0_s were based at Lilydale for the valley_s goods trains, and one of these was rostered for the passenger train. It was great while it lasted _ close to home, cheap, lovely scenery, steep gradients, timber bridges, a tunnel and steam. The Warburton line is now a bike trail, but earnest efforts are being made to reopen the top end of the Healesville line with a restored Walker railcar. That will be a trip worth taking.

Published in Sixties Steam in Australasia

n. Adelaide Division

Wed Apr 25 2007

Wednesday 25 April 2007: The SAR was quick to adopt American practice, having been dragged kicking and screaming to its senses by W.A.Webb, the man from Dallas who took over the moribund and Anglophile system in 1922. In less than eight years the SAR was transformed from a quaint colonial railway into industry leader. He left a team of dedicated officers imbued with his vision that "looked to America" for technology more suited to the vast distances of this continent.

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m. Peterborough Division

Mon Apr 23 2007

Monday 23 April 2007: The South Australian Railways was well known for its big American styled locomotives, introduced on the broad gauge network by Commissioner Webb in 1926. But much of the SAR's bread and butter came from the narrow gauge line that crossed the dry country from the copper mines of Broken Hill to the smelter at Port Pirie. Webb feared the ore would be exhausted, and refrained from investing in the line. So old 4-8-0's soldiered on, assisted from the mid Fifties by ten striking Garratts. Division headquarters were at Peterborough, where a delightful collection of rollingstock was to be found. There was more and bigger steam elsewhere, but steam on the fringes of the South Australian desert had a very special charm, and the SAR iced the cake with delightful railmotors and carriages. The show was directed by train orders, a novelty to Eastern enthusiasts accustomed to electric staff and double line block. Other American touches were ground level platforms and kerosene end maker lamps. And what an orchestra of whistles had the SAR!

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l. The Midland Line

Sun Mar 18 2007

Sunday 18 March 2007: The Australian and New Zealand railway systems were remarkably diverse, not just in track gauge, but in all aspects of design and operations. However, they all shared a common bond to the British railway school of engineering and operations, and co-operated to a limited extent through mechanisms like the Australian and New Zealand Railway Commissioners Conferences. Of the eight systems, the NZR was perhaps the most independent, there being 2,000 miles of Tasman Sea between Wellington and Sydney. But the NZR was also faced with the greatest challenge in coping with the legacy of James Fairlie, for not only had the NZ Government fallen for his narrow gauge propaganda, like so much of the British railway world in the early 1870_s, but they also agreed to his restrictive structure gauge, supposedly to reduce the cost of building tunnels. At 11_6_ high and 8_6_ wide, it was probably the most restricted in the world. The Americans had perfected the engineering of cheap standard gauge railways, but due the Civil War and its aftermath their technology remained inaccessible for most of the world until the gauge damage was done. Faced with growing business, the NZR had to find ways of cramming power into a very small structural envelope while keeping axle loads within the capacity of their light rails. In the early 20th Century the NZR embraced compounding and high boiler pressures, and developed the world_s first 4-6-2 _Pacific_ and 4-8-2 _Mountain_ designs. Some of these engines were home built at the Hillside or Addington Workshops. Development continued, with the remarkable K class 4-8-4 emerging from their Hutt Workshops during the depths of the Depression in 1932. The K was twenty years ahead of Australian narrow gauge locomotive design, but the Kiwi_s didn_t relax. In 1939 they complimented it with the racy bullet nosed J class Mountain. Built by North British in Glasgow and shipped just in time to avoid German submarines, the J carried a 39 sq.ft firebox, Baker valve gear and Vanderbilt tenders but their axle load was less than 12 tons! One can only speculate about Queensland_s capacity to cope with war traffic had they followed the NZR_s lead. Railcar development was also advanced, with the double ended Vulcans of 1940 establishing a speed record of 78mph (126kph) on test after delivery. Not bad on 3_6_ gauge! As a schoolboy I was taken with pictures of rakish bullet nosed Mountains, strange flat faced 4-8-4_s, beautiful turn of the Century American 4-6-0_s and wood burners with strange spark arresting chimneys. But the cost of crossing the Tasman put paid any thought of a visit. But thankfully I managed to earn enough to fly across on an Air New Zealand Lockheed Electra in December 1967, one month before a big shipment of Japanese hood units killed off the last strongholds of steam in the South Island.

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k. The South West

Fri Mar 9 2007

Friday 9 March 2007: The South West of Western Australia was the richest timber producing region in the Commonwealth, the source of valuable Karri and Jarrah hardwoods. Coal was mined at Collie, and the region around Donnybrook was premier apple growing country. The region was once covered with the most extensive network of timber tramways in the nation, but by 1965 only one survived. This connected a big stream powered mill at Donnelly River with the transfer siding at Yornup, on the Pemberton line. The Western Australian Government Railway's main southern line ran from Perth 115 miles to the port of Bunbury, the focus of much of the regions exports, including grain from the wheat belt on the eastern side of the forests. Bunbury was one of the largest rural cities in the West; not that it was very big! But you could find big steam there, and plenty of it. The WAGR_s finest, the Robert Stephenson V class MacArthur_s shared the depot with the equally imposing S class Mountains. There were lots of the light but very modern W class Mountains, various classes of Pacific, old Fs class 4-8-0_s and a few G class Colonial Moguls. The most important timber branch ran south from Bunbury, through Donnybrook, beautiful Bridgetown and Pemberton to Northcliffe, a distance of 125 miles. Double headed combinations of W_s and S_s were common. To the east of Bunbury a line climbed the escarpment to the coal mining town of Collie, fuel source of the WAGR_s steam fleet, but more importantly, for the East Perth power station. The V class was the engine of choice for the Collie to Perth coal trains. This collection focuses on the Pemberton and Collie lines, but there was a good deal more to see. The railwaymen were a friendly lot, so it was not hard to get a firemen to lend you his shovel!

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j. The Flash Ghan

Tue Mar 6 2007

Tuesday 6 March 2007: An Adelaide to Darwin railway was a South Australian objective, as that colony originally included all of what is now the Northern Territory. They were persuaded to give their northern half up to the Commonwealth government at Federation in 1901, on the promise that the railway would be completed. But unlike the Western Australians, they received no date for their trans-continental railway promise, so it took over 100 years! The Commonwealth did make a start, extending the narrow gauge Central Australia Railway to Alice Springs in 1929. However, the exploitation of low grade coal at Leigh Creek, about 150 miles north of Port Augusta, placed intolerable strains on the 3_6_ gauge line, which wound through the Flinders Ranges at its lower end. A new standard gauge line was built in the dry country west of the ranges, extending to Marree, at the base of the Birdsville track. Opened in 1956, it introduced a break of gauge on the Central Australia Railway, and from that year Com Rails began using carriages from the original Trans Australian Express on both the standard and narrow gauge sections of the Ghan. The regauged carriages caused a stir in the Outback, where such luxury was unknown. Colloquially, the train became the _Flash Ghan_. It never ran with steam; the arrival of the NSU class Sulzer diesels two years earlier made the NM class 4-8-0_s instantly redundant, and few in that desert country could have mourned their passing. The Sulzers had heaps of character anyway.

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i. The Dirty Ghan

Mon Mar 5 2007

Monday 5 March 2007: The Ghan has become a famous train, but it had humble beginnings before Federation, when the South Australian Railways 3_6_ gauge extended as far north as Oodnadatta. The Outback train replaced camel trains driven by Afghan immigrants; hence the name. Under Commonwealth Railways control, the line extended as far as Alice Springs in 1929, and in the Fifties they upgraded the Ghan with carriages cascaded from the Trans Australian Express. These regauged cars were quite luxurious, and the train was unofficially tagged the _Flash Ghan_. But it was not the only train to Alice Springs. There was a once weekly Mixed that stopped everywhere and conveyed railway track workers, truck drivers, aborigines and a few others. This then was tagged the _Dirty Ghan_, but you will never see these names in the timetables!

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h. NSW Mail Trains

Sun Mar 4 2007

Sunday 4 March 2007: A parade of ten overnight Mail Trains left Sydney every week night. On these remarkable trains mail vans, Traveling Post Offices, and parcels/brake vans were marshaled front and back of 1st and 2nd class sitters and sleepers (sometimes all three in one car). Some Mails even had prison cars attached to take felons to country prison farms. Three headed South; the Temora, Cooma and Through Mails: four went West; the Coonamble, Through, Forbes and Mudgee Mails: three served the North; the North West, North Coast and Glen Innes Mails. The North West Mail led the parade out of Sydney Central at 6.20pm, and the parcels and mail loaders were kept busy until the Mudgee Mail glided away behind a 46 class electric at 10.00pm. On Sunday nights the timetables were different, with people returning up country after a weekend in the Big Smoke. Some of the train names changed too. These trains were not confined to the main lines; the mail had to reach every community. So their progress was a diminishing one, as vans and carriages were detached for connecting branch lines. A mail bag loaded on the Through Mail leaving Sydney behind a 38 at 9.50pm could arrive at Batlow on a connecting mixed drawn by an ancient 19 Class 0-6-0. Another bag put aboard the 9.40pm Forbes Mail might travel 698 miles over nearly 15 hours before arriving at Broken Hill on the Silver City Comet.

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g. Mayne Depot

Fri Mar 2 2007

Friday 2 March 2007: g. Mayne Depot

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f. Southern Queensland

Wed Feb 28 2007

Wednesday 28 February 2007: Forty years has changed Brisbane and Southern Queensland out of sight. In 1961 the tallest building in Brisbane was the Post Office clock tower, and suburban trains were steam hauled on 3'6" gauge. The coal mining boom had yet to happen, and the QR was very much the "Quaint and Rattly". The steam locomotives were green, brown, blue or black, and the delightful rollingstock was mainly wooden. The diesels were light blue and white, as were the showcase all steel, air-conditioned trains. The rails were laid vertical and the wheels were cylindrical. The enginemen wore waistcoats and felt hats. There were also about 2,000 miles of 2 foot gauge sugar tramways, criss-crossing the mainline up the Sunshine Route. To Southerners, it was all too good to be true!

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e. The Short North

Wed Feb 28 2007

Wednesday 28 February 2007: The Newcastle line was one of the busiest in Australia, and one of the few with double track. Fifty miles north of Sydney the wire came to an end and the 46 class electrics were detached. Then the fun started! Nearly every class of steam and diesel locomotive could be seen pulling both passenger and goods trains over the next 51 miles. And it was no lay down misere, with a ruling grade of 1 in 44 on Hawkmount Bank, 1 in 40 on Fassifern Bank, and several others not much easier. But there was opportunity for fast running too, and the show went on right to the end of steam because no diesel could match a 38 or a 60.

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d. 4.20pm Tailem Bend

Tue Feb 27 2007

Tuesday 27 February 2007: One of the last passenger trains rostered for steam out of Adelaide was the 4.20pm Tailem Bend, which included through cars and vans for the Murraylands. Within a few miles of the city, the train was winding into the Adelaide Hills on gradients of 1 in 45 and through long tunnels. The usual power allotted was a 520 class 4-8-4, but occasionally a 620 class light Pacific got into the act.

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c. Mont Albert Bank

Tue Feb 27 2007

Tuesday 27 February 2007: Just over eight miles from Flinders Street on the eastern suburbs line, Mont Albert was at the top of a 1 in 40 climb in both directions. Electrified in the early Twenties, locomotives still worked the suburban goods trains. On rare occasions the engine was steam.

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b. The Melbourne Area

Mon Feb 26 2007

Monday 26 February 2007: I began visiting the North Melbourne Locomotive Depot as a 13 year old in 1959, sometimes taking my Kodak Brownie Model D. A bit later I discovered Newport Workshops. My presence was never challenged. I think many enginemen thought I was a lad clerk from Head Office.

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