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Melbourne and surrounds (October 2010)

Recently purchased a new camera (finally a DSLR!, well, actually a DSLT) and have been checking out the old haunts lately. Great timing too as we've just entered daylight savings.

Steam around Melbourne (and a trip to Seymour)

Steamrail are a Melbourne (Newport Workshops) based heritage rail operator and have quite a nice selection of rolling stock. Their R-Class Steam Locomotives are even licensed to run by themselves on the mainline...

El Zorro Freight

El Zorro is a small freight operator in Victoria who run both Standard and Broad gauge trains. Recently they have been running a grain train to and from Dynon using leased heritage engines in their original VR livery.

Queensland Rail

QR (who are about to be privatised) also run out of Dynon with large intermodal freight. They provide a nice change of scenery on the standard gauge with their LDP and G Class locomotives.

Sims St Junction (Pacific National Locomotive Depot)

At the west side of the freight are in Melbourne is Pacific National's Locomotive Provisioning Centre. Here you'll mainly see NRs getting fueled and services (with the occasional AN) and then either coupled light engine to head off to Spotswood or sent east to a rake of containers for haulage.

Melbourne-Sydney XPT

Poor old Countrylink can't win nowadays; The 'main south' from Sydney to Melbourne has been in the press nearly every day for the last few months as the ARTC bungle up the re-sleepering program (and duplication of the standard gauge.) Recently, due to their technique of sleeper replacement, the new concrete sleepers have not been seated correctly in the ballast and mudholes have resulted. This has caused some very rough riding for all trains and has even caused damage to XPT power cars and break-ups (uncoupling) of freight trains.
Seeing the XPT in Melbourne has become an unexpected treat!

81 Class shunting in Dynon

The intermodal container trains are (usually) shunted around by an 81 Class. This loco will put the empty flatbeds in the correct roads and also reconnect loaded container wagons. Sometimes this train must use the standard gauge track that leads to Southern Cross (Spencer Street) Station but it usually doesn't travel too far along. Fortunately, I was in the right place at the right time to see the 81 travel all the way down the other side of the flyover.

It also then shunts from the other end of the yard across the Dock Link Rd level crossing.

Another random sighting for this shunting maneuver was the original NRs pulling the consist half way up the flyover incline.

Track Machines

Lately there's been a lot of work down at Southern Cross Station for the addition of a new platform for the Regional Rail link debacle. This has meant track machines working during the day to lay new track or realign old lines. They return home each night via Sims St.

Middle Footscray

I tried Middle Footscray Station yesterday instead of the usual Sims St Junction and was impressed with the traffic that passed between 1800-1930.

And that's about it for now... Melbourne sightings are picking up now that daylight savings is here. It seems that early evening is the best time as well. You can can find the whole album that the above shots come from here.

Melbourne – The Southern Spirit

Great Southern Railways (or GSR) is a long distance train operator in Australia operating famous trains such as The Ghan, The Overland and The Indian Pacific. In 2008 they announced that they were going to run a service that brought all of their current services together, including a trip to Brisbane, to be known as the Southern Spirit. Unfortunately, due to the 'Global Financial Crisis', this service did not run in 2009... being postponed for a year.

So, after returning from Japan, I noticed a thread on Railpage titled 'Loco hauled passenger services...' and realised they were talking about the Southern Spirit. This brought back all the feelings of anger from last year when I'd heard it was to be completely cancelled... I was excited back then since the train was to make an overnight stay in Canberra! It also made me realise how much people had forgotten (or ignored) the service altogether, as it seemed like a pipe dream.

Anyway, the service was now running, and was to make a stopover in Melbourne on a weekend... perfect timing. It turns out Saturday was to be great weather, so I chose the beach instead, but the train was to depart for Sydney on Sunday the 17th December and I was going to capture it.

Just a note, the full album of photos and videos is located here.

Departing Melbourne

The consist and loco had spent the night in Dynon Yard which is a large area of freight and maintenance operations in Melbourne. I jumped on my bike on Saturday evening and could see the consist from Mooney Ponds, but couldn't get a good shot of it. I did at least confirm that the train existed and could also determine it's approach to Southern Cross Station the next morning.

I made it to North Melbourne Station at 9am on Sunday morning and then proceeded towards Southern Cross following the railway. Most of the lines running are broad gauge, but there is a single standard gauge flyover from the yards to the Southern Cross a little further south of North Melbourne station. Here I waited for the service to move in.

Whilst waiting I saw a few things I didn't expect. It turns out that the second line on the flyover is broad gauge and is used quite a lot!

At around 1010 NR85 could be seen long-end-leading (which is extremely unusual for an NR) towards the flyover from Dynon Yard. It proceeded slowly over the gradient and then down towards Southern Cross.

From here, as I was on foot, caught a suburban to Southern Cross and took a few more pics of the train.

I then jumped on the next Footscray-bound service and found a spot trackside halfway between Footscray and Middle Footscray. Of course, there just had to be a passing EMU as I was recording a video of the Spirit leaving Melbourne.

Whilst returning to Flinders Street, I saw a freight service heading south towards Southern Cross Station. The EMU I was on managed to beat it to Flinders Street and I got a few shots of it passing through the station.

Shots from Eureka Tower

Unrelated, I've also been up Eureka Tower lately and got a few shots of the return freight service.