Candy abounds!

It has been several days since the Modelling the Railways of NSW 35th Convention, where I had the opportunity to co-present (read, evangelise) about the Coonamble branch.  If you were at the Convention and attended one of my sessions, thank you for not throwing anything at me, including hard questions. I frankly had a ball; listening to myself speak has always been one of my favourite past-times.  But now life will return to normal, which means blogging!

One of the drawbacks of presenting (perhaps the only drawback) is the reduced opportunity you have to attend other sessions.  I only got to one other session and it was on a subject which perplexes me to this day - signalling.  It was a beaut session and I can now confidently say that the signal in the photo below is a short one.

I think I promised to post a larger version of the photograph above showing the silo complex just too intimidating to climb or model.  And here is a going away shot of the same train...

Its late so I will wrap things here but before I do I will try to redress the dominance of Indian red locos on this blog - a fair comment by a patron last weekend.  Here's two photos, both from around 1985, of candy-liveried locos heading north through Eumungerie. First up, a pretty 4844 on a pretty standard empty wheatie.

I haven't shown enough photos of shy locos on this blog... so here's one of 4874 hiding behind a pole.

Cheers!
Don

Moving trains at Eumungerie

It has been a while but my efforts are almost fully diverted to working out fast ways to slice videos into snippets for uploading onto Flickr. Along the way I have discovered two more short videos of workings through Eumungerie.

The first comes from 1990 - 5 October to be precise. It shows a 48 class working the Up Goods to Dubbo.  The wagons are tarped - am guessing that there are bales of wool tucked up safely underneath those tarps.

This next video has 48143 and 4894 pulling out of Eumungerie on a down ballast on 21 January 1992.  As the locos accelerate, keen-eared listeners will hear commentary from Bill MacMillan, one of Eumungerie's stalwarts.  Bill's father was the first manager of the timber mill at Eumungerie - the enterprise which gave the nascent village purpose and permanency in the first years of the 19th century. The other voice you here is the Senior Train Hunter (Bill's nephew) trying to hold old Bill at bay with as few words as possible!

Enjoy! Back to the serious stuff later.

Don

A short video about grain

Over the last couple of weeks I have been experimenting (without a real lot of success) in uploading videos to Blogger. Unless it is done through YouTube there are issues.  

This means double handling for someone like myself who has committed to uploading to Flickr as it allows you to post photos, videos and even document in the same place. Someone who knows the dark arts of Blogger is welcome to let me know about shortcuts!

Here is what I would describe as one of my successes... from 2007, 48102, 48125, 4894 and 48144 haul a down empty grain through Eumungerie. Nice Alco dribble.

I will be back soon, hopefully with a few more videos!

Cheers,
Don

Same spot, different times

I have been pondering the essence of locomotive depots recently - what is absolutely essential, what is probably needed and what is otherwise nice to have. This pondering led me to think a little about Dubbo's depot - which was pretty small (geographically speaking) relative to most other NSW loco depots. And this pondering even led me to assemble a montage of photographs, taken from nearly the same spot over the last 50+ years. 

I won't bore you with all the photographs - lets just have a look at one every 10 years or so.  What has struck me is the weird stuff - things moving around and other things just hanging around long past use-by dates.

Lets start with a baseline in January 1967 - this shot is a bit closer than the others I will post. Apart from showing 3649 and a P class shunting a S wagon with a very clean tarp, the position is clear from the palm tree and the edge of the signal gantry.  At this time there is the old shed in the process of falling apart, alongside the newer shed.  A line of buildings forms the northern edge.

Fast forward to May 1979 and... it is eerily similar.  OK, the old shed 'fell down' but we have steam era gantries and buildings.  The trees remain and a steam boiler balances on its end further down the yard as a sanding tower.

Jump forward to October 1987 and there has been some change - the diesel fuel pad has been installed and the steam boiler has wandered westward to a position adjacent to the pad. The shed is still there, and so are the trees.  Hey, there is even a S wagon in the shade of the shed.

Next stop, 1997. The shed, fuel pad, sanding tower and even the S wagon are still all there. What's new? The locos are larger - 8213 almost seems to be cramped inside the fuel pad. And those trees - is that new growth?

Onto 2005. Shed, tick. Fuel pad, tick. Wandering sanding tower, tick.  The trees look healthy- even the one which has grown in front of the shed in the right of way - so the shed is there but not being used? At least the western end of the shed is not accessible. And our S wagon (I am presuming it is the same one) has traveled back down its track to the eastern end of the shed.

OK, last one - 2012. The sanding tower has gone, so has the S wagon. The buildings that remain are boarded up. The western end of the shed is no longer obscured by foliage and the palm trees look like they have had a haircut. Has there been a renaissance for the shed? Sadly, no. zoom in and you may be able to pick out the fine lines of mesh across its entrance.  A close check of the roof gives an indication of its purpose - it is a very large pigeon loft.

So, I could go on and on and on but it is Christmas and we all have better things to do. In a reductionist world, what is the essence of a NSWGR loco depot? I think it could be palm trees and S wagons.  All the rest is relatively impermanent! 

Merry Christmas folks!
Don