XPT « modelrail.otenko

13Jul/180

Main South – June 2018

I had to drive to Sydney for work.. so I via'd Canberra and the railway line. Didn't get to see much as I was mainly on-the-clock and had places to be... but fluked a few sightings. First up was perfect timing with the Harefield shuttle. Whilst waiting for it, there was (as there always is) amazing cloud formations to drool over. Not so easy to capture on an SLT though.

The light is never in the right area in the afternoon and so I've got a favourite place at the top of the climb from Harefield to Junee on an S-Bend. It gives you a minute possibiliy of having the loco on a good angle.

It also lets you take a photo of the train seemingly driving on the road...

And then some great angles of the consist traversing the curves...

There's always a good lash-up on this train. Qube run the shuttle and, since it's such a short trip between Harefield and Junee, use a miriad of vintage locomotives.

There wasn't much else happening on the rails, so I bolted through to Harden and caught a northbound PN intermodal trying not to roll too fast down the hill.

The leg from Canberra to Sydney was a little quieter, but I did manage to intercept a northbound SCT service just near Bargo. SCT have recently acquired a bunch of LDPs from QR who no longer do southern intermodal trains, so this was an interesting lash-up.

Next is the Griffith Explorer passing through Galong. This is train has an every-second-day timetable and isn't an easy one to catch. The weather was also disturbingly cold and wet.

A few KMs down the track I intercepted the northbound Melbourne-Sydney XPT. It absolutely flew past me!

Further down in Yerong Creek, I intercepted a north-bound Steel Train.

In Culcairn I thought I found one of the ex-ARHS Canberra passenger cars, but alas, supposedly it's been here for years. I'm usually too distracted by the local bakery and don't actually check out this corner.

The weather stayed absolutely awful...

But I hung around in the cold for the southbound XPT.

And then continued home through a heavy downpour... car needed a wash anyway.

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15Jun/160

Trains… a backlog.

I'm sure I should've posted these events as they happened... but one thing lead to another and... I didn't. The folders were starting to cover my desktop so badly that I've now decided to just cull 95% of the photos and keep the only very best... or are required for story-telling.

Below are the happenings since some time around October last year.

Cs on the North-East

The C class is a good-looking locomotive. Delegated to freight, they never get their chances on express passenger services. One train buff in Australia happened to gather enough support to fund a passenger tour hauled by a C class locomotive. This tour ran from Melbourne through to Albury and return.

I caught it at Wandong, just north of Melbourne. Happened to be a nice sweeping curved and I totally fluked it. There were a few other trains in the vicinity also.

Steamrail Kaniva Loop Tour

This tour was run on both gauges. We had V/Line use it's P-Class locomotives first, which got us to Ararat. We then transfered over to the Standard Guage and had a TL pull us all the way out to Kaniva. I'm sure this town used to have ... people ... but not much happens nowadays!

The highlight? The roof panel split off on the way back... must've been fiberglass debris everywhere.

Hunter Valley Steamfest

This is a huge annual event centered on Maitland, NSW. All heritage groups get together and bring their shiniest locomotives to the event. There's always a "Great Train Race" and this year the 6029 Garratt appeared. Canberra actually entered 2 of the 4 trains in the race. Fortunately, there's also 100s of other trains in the area; it's the backbone of the Hunter Valley coal train network.

The steamers, prior to the race, were running shuttles left-right-and-center. Most had a diesel on the rear to prevent any repercussions if a breakdown were to occur.