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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.

Then, it happened.

A damn cool sight... and supposedly a world-record! The rest was just coal trains and more freight.

..and now I'm somewhere up-to-date. Enjoy.