modelrail.otenko Trains, computers, vintage, retro, model railways… the lot…

DERM 58 around Melbourne

The Diesel Electric Rail Motor Preservation Association of Victoria Inc has just recently gotten their DERM 58 back on the rails. This rail-car was built in January 1930 at Newport Workshops, Victoria under license from Electro Motive Company. The association is now running tours with this vehicle across the Victorian broad gauge and this past Saturday, the 9th of April, saw the unit head from Newport to Pakenham, Pakenham to Bacchus Marsh and then back to Newport via Southern Cross station.

I happened to be in the vicinity at SCS and FSS for a few shots.

Knowing it was heading out to Bacchus Marsh, I headed out to Rockbank to get a shot of it against some great countryside.

They turned it at Bacchus Marsh and then I caught it again on the way back through Rockbank.

The engine sounded quite nice and they had some good speed up when heading in to Rockbank. I can only congratulate their efforts and will enjoy seeing it out on the rails more... their next trip is on May the 7th to Seymour. Check their site for more details.

2 Weekends, 4 Steamers and a transfer from WA

Right, it has been too long between postings already... over the last two weekends I've been chasing the Steamrail Shuttles around Melbourne. The weather has been dismal, but it has proved a great lesson in shutter speed vs. exposure and dealing with fast adjustments.

Steamrail from Williamstown to Flinders St

Steamrail, after a quiet Christmas, have been running their K Class Steam Locomotives around the suburbs of Melbourne over the last two weekends. The first of these trips was a shuttle for the Williamstown Festival from Williamstown to Flinders Street with no intermediate stops. Although the weather was pitiful in the morning, I still ventured out to see what was around the traps at Newport.

Fortunately SSR had a rail-train at Anzac Sidings which meant there was something to mix into the background. This train, with GM22+S317 on it, had its headlight on the the majority of the morning and I was hoping it would depart. Unfortunately it turns out it had just returned to the sidings.

There was also a good mix of random Metro and V/Line meetings.

I was also lucky enough to see a freighter heading West.

I then returned to the City and got another few shots of the steam engines at Flinders Street Station.

QR/ARG Grain Train transfer from Western Australia to NSW

As luck has it, I had decided to go to Gheringhap Loop on Saturday the 2nd of April to simply check the place out. I had never been before and wanted to see what all the fuss was about. Once there, I met a few other onlookers who noted that a special transfer from the West was coming through with some interesting locos on it. I was also informed that I'd just missed a Metro transfer from Ballarat and another BG freight train.

Either way, We first saw a loaded Pacific National grain train pull into the loop and then the WA transfer came through.

So, the photo of the transfer sucks.. right? I fumbled the shutter speed as the train bolted through and decided that I had to therefore get a proper shot. I knew it was on its way into Melbourne, so I jumped back in the car and headed to Spotswood. On the way I caught up with the consist just after Werribee. I was on the highway doing 100km/h and I wasn't exactly losing the train. It would've been doing 95km/h at the best of times.

I made it to Spotswood with around 15minutes to spare.

I then proceeded to Bunbury Street Tunnel. All signals were red and there was not a movement to be seen. I then returned to West Footscray where I met some of the other onlookers again. They were all waiting for the consist but weren't sure where it was. At this point it occurred to me that it was probably going to bypass Melbourne and could be at McIntyre Loop. I was in luck...

At this point, LDP001 had detached and was running around the consist. There was quite a turnout there of fans to see the train and one noted that they were doing a loco swap. This meant there would be another QR loco coming from Dynon to then take the train further north. I got my photos from this location and then headed to the other side of the bridge to get further shots.

LDP002 came storming through with a northbound freighter and an A380 swooped over before the grain train departed.

Finally LDP006 showed up.

The consist approached me and my battery died as I was about to take the final shot in great sunlight. Such is life.

Steamrail from Berwick to Pakenham

Sunday, 3rd of April saw another Steamrail shuttle service all day between Berwick and Pakenham. I had decided to take Metro and started walking to North Melbourne Station at 8am. I grabbed a coffee on the way and heard the steam whistles at around 8:25am passing the city... too bad, I wouldn't've minded being in front of them. I arrived at Flinders St only to realise that the next Pakenham server wasn't until 9:11am... Off-peak isn't fun.

Fortunately I did get to see something interesting. A ComEng was in the opposite platform and another was right up against the light behind it. I thought the one in the platform was dead, but instead I saw something I didn't realise Melboune/Metro did.

Metro kept announcing that the train wasn't taking passengers... so I don't actually know if they then used that 6-car set, but it was nice to see. It reminded me of Japan where a lot of the services split and join at certain points (fully loaded) with no issues and very little time required.

I jumped on the Frankston train and got off at Caufield... switching to the Pakenham train which got me to Berwick at around 10:30am. I bought my Steamrail ticket and found out the next shuttle wasn't until 11:18am. The station was actually in quite a nice area. The steamer was a little late.

Once on-board... I attempted to photograph some of the features of the carriage I was in... I didn't even take down the carriage number.

We then arrived at Pakenham after a few rough red lights and I checked out K153 in more detail.

And that was that...I then jumped on the Metro back to Melbourne. The V/Line was meant to come first, but it didn't turn up. Supposedly you are allowed to ride V/Line from Pakenham (the only 'suburban' station where you can join an 'up' V/Line service) on your Myki/Metcard. We got to Hawksburn when it passed us... then we caught it at Richmond. No time lost...

Finally I watched a few trains again in the dwindling light through South Kensington waiting for the steamer to return home. I still don't know if my position was on-side with the rulebook... but I was behind the fence.

At that point the lighting was terrible and the noise in the shot is disturbing... but... all in good fun.

The Southern Spirit – January 2011

I'd checked out The Southern Spirit before, but this time I thought I'd chase it across the state. It's inaugural 2011 voyage was to be from Adelaide to Brisbane starting over the weekend of the 29th and 30th of January.

The Southern Spirit

This train, run by Great Southern Railways, is a once-a-year (although it'll be running the 'journey' twice this year) special service run from Adelaide to Brisbane and return. It's quite a long trip and the journey includes stopovers at stations along the way; including bus tours to local attractions. The train is targeted at people with a large amount of disposable income and a lot of time to spare... you can therefore imagine the average age of the passengers on-board is around 65. Check out more information on The Southern Spirit on the GSR website.

Timetables

I'd done a little investigation and found that The Southern Spirit was to cross 2 freight trains (one twice) and then The Overland. I knew The Overland would be more-or-less on time (when compared to freight) and so decided to start my planning around it. I'd leave Melbourne bright and early and get to Ararat in time for a midday photo of The Overland dropping through. I'd then head west, watch it meet The Southern Spirit and then return home. The Southern Spirit was to stay overnight out west and I would catch up with it again in Melbourne the next morning.

I drew up a diagram, similar to a 'diamond' (a popular Japanese method of showing train paths intersecting), of the trains that would be around the area for Saturday. The y-axis was slightly useless, so I labeled the passing locations and times. Note that 4PM6 didn't show the standard times as it had been modified by ARTC to stop in certain loops to allow trains to pass it. I'd also listed Manor Loop in there, as The Overland was scheduled to pass a freighter; but I've never seen this happen and probably wont get up early for it.

The goal was now set, I was to get to as many of the passes as possible. I also wanted to stop at locations along the way to get the trains in action. Unfortunately, I've never been this way and had no idea where to stop. I also had to make sure I kept to the times as most services would have an NR locomotive on the front and they aren't scared to do line-speed.

Location	Google Time	Better be moving by	Deadline
Melbourne to Ballan	1 hour 7 minutes	0720	0829 : V/Line Ballarat to Melbourne
Ballan to Beaufort	59 minutes	0900	1007 : V/Line Ballarat to Ararat
Beaufort to Ararat	35 minutes	0958 ##	1033 : V/Line Ballarat to Ararat 1147 : Overland at Ararat
Ararat to Diapur Station	2 hours 23 minutes	1140 **	1342 : Southern Spirit at Diapur Station 1404 : Overland pass Southern Spirit
Diapur Station to Dimboola Station	50 minutes	1358	1443-1448 : Southern Spirit at Dimboola
Dimboola Station to Horsham	30 minutes	1445	1513 : Southern Spirit arrives Horsham 1521 : 5BA6 pass Southern Spirit
Horsham to Dimboola Station	30 minutes (to Station) ~32 minutes (to Loop)	1523	1559 : 5BA6 pass 4PM6 (at Loop) 1614-1619 : 4PM6 (at Station)
Dimboola Station to Horsham	30 minutes	1626	1702 : 4PM6 pass Southern Spirit 1748 : Depart Horsham
Horsham to Ararat	1 hour 15 minutes	1745	1900 : Southern Spirit arrives Ararat

## Seems the Regional Fast Rail to Ararat can beat me from Beaufort to Ararat.
** Check that out, The Overland is still meant to be at Ararat Station until 1147 but I need to get going at 1140 (based on Google's time estimate) to see it at the pass The Southern Spirit at 1404 at Diapur Station.

After google'ing the locations, directions, distances and times... it occured to me that catching all of the above passes would be quite a challenge. If the trains did in-fact run at their tabled times, then I would pretty much be neck-and-neck with them along each leg. This wouldn't allow time for any in-between shots. Fortunately I'd still be just-in-time for the passes in each of the loops.

Determining the locations of the 'loops' versus the 'stations' was a little tricky. Fortunately the Vicsig Website has a complete detailed plan of the 'Western SG' line and gives you the distances of the loops from certain landmarks. Google maps didn't know where 'Dimboola Loop' was, but after a little research I found out it was around 5km north/west of Dimboola. It also looked quite difficult to get to from the Western Highway, so I decided to skip the 1559 passing of 4PM6/5BA6 and instead chose to wait for the latter at Dimboola Station.

Now, planning is all well and good when the trains follow their paths... unfortunately this isn't always the case. The Gheringhap Loop Sightings Website has a well-documented list of train movements through the Gheringhap Loop (near Geelong) and it shows, specifically last Saturday, that the two east-bound trains were up to 6 hours late, with 4PM6 being 1.5 hours early. This, to say the least, is disconcerting. The contingency plan was to take all roads as close to the railway as possible and keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

Note: The entire photo gallery of this trip is located here.

V/Line in Country Victoria

The plan was in place and we started out for Ararat at 7am on Saturday the 29th of January, 2011. Our first stop was Ballan and this was made in good time. Google had indicated over an hour, but the trip was easily done, without speeding, in 55 minutes. Here we saw a single V/Line V/Locity DMU arrive on it's way to Melbourne. There's also a nice water tank in the Station carpark.

We then proceeded to Beaufort, bypassing Ballarat. Here we met the first service from Melbourne to Ararat. Again, the trip was quicker than what Google had predicted as the roads were all 110km/h running and quiet.

We then departed for Ararat. There was no chance of beating the V/Locity there and so we took our time. The Overland wasn't due in Ararat until 11:47 and we were easily going to be there an hour early.

Ararat

As we arrived we saw the V/Locity terminated on the platform and used it as an excuse to check the station platforms out.

After grabbing a coffee in the main street we attempted to find a suitable position to photograph The Overland. We would need a quick departure from Ararat to meet The Overland again as it had priority on the tracks. The next station would be Horsham which was around 100km away.

Although the sun wasn't in our favour, we chose a spot on the other side of the railway, close to the highway. I also chose the wrong lens, but got a few photos of The Overland arriving at Ararat 20 minutes early.

We didn't wait for The Overland to leave... we jumped in the car and headed for Horsham. Unfortunately the roads were all 100km/h and we were passed by The Overland about 20km out of Ararat.

Horsham

We hadn't had any visibility of the rails for around 40km prior to Horsham, but had expected that all hope was lost. It was a nice surprise that, upon arrival to the station, we found passengers waiting for the train. There were even a few freight locomotives shunting around the yard.

And then The Overland arrived.

We, again, didn't give it a chance to leave before us... We knew what it was capable of and needed a head start.

Horsham to Dimboola

This was the best part of the trip. The drivers were on to us, they knew we were tagging along. They also made us know that they were perfectly capable of beating us... blowing their horns as they passed us on the highway. The rail between Horsham and Dimboola runs parallel for 90% of the way and is great when you're running side-by-side. Unfortunately The Overland had no intention of hanging around.

We then fell behind quite heavily and watched as the train seemed to drive across the road around corners... it really is a great sight. We proceeded to Dimboola hoping to go straight through and get another head start.

Dimboola

As we came in to the town we knew we'd been beaten. The level crossing was already quiet and, as we crossed it, we saw the tail of the train in the platform. This meant we had around 2 minutes to get in front of it. Finally the sun was on our side and we parked a few metres west of the station to watch the train depart.

Now it was decision time. The Overland was meant to cross The Southern Spirit at Diapur Station. This was around an hour away by car, but we couldn't guarantee that the roads/traffic would allow us to get there in time. We also knew that The Overland was running around 20 minutes early. This meant that, depending on the timing of The Southern Spirit, the cross could be made at another location...

We had decided to proceed through to Dimboola Loop. I'd known, thanks to the Vicsig website, that it was around the AWB facilities near Dimboola, but from the road, it wasn't easy to spot. Either way, we saw no trains around the area. We continued on, expecting to travel as far as Nhill.

As we were around 25mins west of Dimboola, a headlight appeared on the tracks. The last thing we expected was dirty NRs on a freight train, but there was 4PM6 hurtling towards us. The Overland had already passed it, somewhere west of Dimboola Loop and the freighter had already built up speed and was heading for it's scheduled stop in Dimboola. This train was expected to be held back at Tailem Bend and was meant to run behind The Southern Spirit until Horsham but had instead been allowed to proceed.

We then pulled a strategic u-turn and followed the freight back to Dimboola. This was an easy chase, as the freighter was unable to hold 100km/h on the gradients. We got back to Dimboola in time and had the sun on our side for once.

I had a quick chat to the driver who confirmed it was 4PM6 and that The Southern Spirit was due through not long after. The drivers swapped over and the freighter departed quickly. We then waited around for our first sighting.

The Southern Spirit at Dimboola

Around 35mins later we could hear an NR powering its way towards Dimboola. A headlight then appeared over the incline from the west and the next thing we knew, the whole train had passed. We had seen that the signal was green and that the train didn't have to stop but, after the freighter crawled though, we weren't expecting line-speed. I managed to scramble a few photos but, even in broad daylight, the motion blur couldn't be avoided.

We had now finally seen the train and followed it back to Horsham. There was absolutely no chance of beating it and we knew it was to stable for around 3 hours there.

Horsham Station

As we were arriving back in to Horsham, we saw the tail of the train... It was doing around 10km/h towards the first level crossing in the town which was still inactive. After hitting it's horn, the lights and bells started chiming and it proceeded further. Fortunately, we were doing 60km/h and easily made it to the station before it.

The train had to take two attempts to get everyone off. I believe I counted 16 cars and there was no way it would fit on the platform at once. There was an El Zorro grain train with T386 and C501 playing around in the container yards as well.

Horsham itself wasn't very photogenic and so we decided that Ararat would be a better option. The goal was also to find a line-side position somewhere along the way to get The Southern Spirit once again. Unfortunately the line deviates a long way off the beaten path and we gave up. We therefore also missed the west-bound container train (if it ran at all.)

After arriving much too early at Ararat, we decided that it was time to return back to Melbourne; we'd see the train again in the morning.

The Southern Spirit in Melbourne

I assumed my usual position at the North Melbourne flyover and met a few new people who were also waiting for the same train. The XPT arrived on time and then the Southern Spirit arrived, attached it's pilot loco and then proceeded to Southern Cross Station.

The consist then made its way back to the freight yards after dropping the passengers off. The pilot loco did all the work here over the flyover. The XPT also started its return journey to Sydney.

The consist then sat in the freight yards for around two hours. I had enough time for breakfast and then returned to the Canal Sidings to watch it come back into Southern Cross.

The final trick then was to get out to the bridge over the same "Railway Canal" near Jacana. This should have been an easy shot but I chose the wrong lens again. Either way, it was a great way to end the chase.

The Southern Spirit will return via Melbourne and be at Southern Cross at around 7pm on Tuesday the 8th of February. The pilot locomotive will be attached at the same location but will be detached well out of town. This will be well worth a photograph or two and I'll attempt to get them next week.

The whole journey from Adelaide to Brisbane and return is also to be repeated, starting on the weekend of the 12th and 13th of February. I'm not so sure if I'll cover the 1000km again, but you never know, there might be other interesting things to see in the area.

const int throttle_positions = 21;
const int throttle_absolute_maximum_speed = 255;
const int throttle_minimum_speed = 20;
int current_throttle_position = -1; // 0 is EM FULL. Lever must be moved to EM FULL to begin.
float current_speed = 0;
float target_speed = 0;
int throttle_max_speed[throttle_positions] =  {
	0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0,0, //brake positions and Throttle 0
	0, 55, 75, 90, 100, 120
};
float throttle_delta[throttle_positions] = 	{
	0.025, 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.4, 0.8, 1.2, 1.8, 2.4, 10, 20, 25, 30, 50, 9999, //brake
	0.00 /*coast*/, 0.25, 0.5, 1, 1.75, 2.5
};

#define BRAKE_MASK 0xf0
#define BRAKE_SHIFT 4
#define ACCEL_MASK 0x07
void read_throttle_position() {
	int accel = packet.data[6] & ACCEL_MASK;
	int brake = (int)((packet.data[7] & BRAKE_MASK) >> BRAKE_SHIFT);
	
	if (current_throttle_position == -1) {
		//check that we have EM FULL and Neutral
		if (brake  == 15 && accel  == 1) {
			//set the initial '0' (EM FULL) position.
			current_throttle_position = 0; 
			lcd.clear();
		}
	} else {
		if (brake != 1) { //1 == "BRAKE 1", if it's higher, we're braking.
			if (brake > 0) current_throttle_position = brake;
		} else { //BRAKE == 1 and then we check the throttle
			//we're accelerating.
			if ((accel + 15) < 22) current_throttle_position = accel + 15;
		}
	}
}

void update_speed() {
		digitalWrite(13, LOW);
	//make sure we are allowed to go.
	if (current_throttle_position >= 0) {
		if (current_speed > throttle_max_speed[current_throttle_position - 1]) {
			current_speed -= throttle_delta[current_throttle_position - 1];
			
			//braking... don't go negative.	
			if (current_speed < throttle_minimum_speed) 
				current_speed = 0; 
				
		} else if (current_speed < throttle_max_speed[current_throttle_position - 1]) {
		
			//accelerating, so start from minimum speed.	
			if (current_speed < throttle_minimum_speed) 
				current_speed = throttle_minimum_speed;
				
			current_speed += throttle_delta[current_throttle_position - 1];
			
			//don't go faster than current throttle max setting.
			if (current_speed > throttle_max_speed[current_throttle_position - 1])
				current_speed = throttle_max_speed[current_throttle_position - 1];
		}

		//set light if we have met max speed for throttle.
		if (current_speed == throttle_max_speed[current_throttle_position - 1]) 
			digitalWrite(13, HIGH);
			
		//output speed to railway.
		analogWrite(7, current_speed);		
	} else {
		//flash the LED to alert user to reset controls.
		delay(200); //delay a little to flash the LED
		digitalWrite(13, HIGH);
		delay(200);
	}
}