Friday, January 30, 2009

spot of train spotting #1

click to enlarrge  —  imarge by jarcob

Like a ghostly apparition, Y135 (early-1960s vintage) hauls the South Gippsland Tourist Railway’s ‘Dinner Train’ across the river flats between Nyora and Loch.

UPDATE

Dinner Train — caboose perspective (bum shot) ...

click to enlarrge  —  imarge by jarcob

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27 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

That is a gorgeous photograph!

30/1/09 2:43 PM  
Blogger Caz said...

There are a few thousand commuters waiting at Flinders Street, hoping the last train running will come and get them.

They don't even care where the train takes them.

30/1/09 9:06 PM  
Blogger Father Park said...

Or if they are NSW's old "Red Rattlers".

Least they'd run and you could open windows and doors....

30/1/09 9:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Heard about the chaos in the CBD (i.e., Melbourne). People trapped in lifts, etc. Ugh!

I'm on a spot of leave at the moment and very relieved to be. Hope you got out while the going was good, Caz.

Pity they can't get this baby to trundle down to Flinders St and take people home. Unfortunately the line is derelict between Nyora and the big smoke.

SGR also has three diesel rail cars, including two Red Hens from suburban Adelaide. Only used Saturdays, public hols and every Wed during school hols. Such a waste...

30/1/09 9:36 PM  
Blogger Craig w said...

Greetings Jacob,

Could you please change that awful (American) word "Caboose" to Brakevan? That is the term we used out here for locomotive hauled passenger stock.

The pics are nice, but you are in my favourite part of Victoria. Our most recent trip a few years back involved loading our two teenage kids and camping gear into a Camry. We started at Sydney and drove down the coast eventually ending up at Lakes Entrance. Then went inland via Bombala and back across to the coast. Camped at Cann River again and took photos of us sitting in the same spots as we did when my wife and I did the same trip before kids.

They hated the first few days of camping and cursed and swore when we had to head back to reality.

A few of the (closed) railway lines in the Gippsland area have been converted to rail trails and are a great walk as well. Still sad seeing them closed, but at least they are remembered I guess.

All the railway systems are seeing the results of decades of chronic under investment. Big Kevs 10 billion dollar hand out before Christmas could have done a lot of rehabilitation work on the Sydney - Melbourne line. The same applies with the former Governments hand outs too by the way.

regards,

Craig W

31/1/09 9:06 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hullo Craig, good to hear from you. Busy weekend, so please excuse delay replying.

Firstly, why the hatred of America?

Kidding, of course, but now you mention it I've never encountered the term brakevan. Then again I'm not a disciplined rail enthusiast, so I'll take your point on board.

Anyway, I've always known them as guard's vans (perhaps unconsciously avoiding the American term). I've just looked it up, and strangely enough the word 'caboose' originally referred to a ship's galley.

Re kids & camping, we had a similar experience having to drag a kid kicking and screaming to go camping, then having to drag him kicking etc back home again. Bit of an enfant terrible - don't know where he got it from - but he's mercifully mellowed in maturity. (Hmmm, a lot of alliteration...)

Even hopelessly urbanised kids usually warm to 'roughing' it in the great outdoors. Then again, my brother took our sister's boys fishing once; they refused to go near the worms; after several minutes without a nibble, one of them complained, "Nothing's happening!" He was missing the instant gratification of his Nintendo, I guess. Anyway, sadly they were underwhelmed with the experience, and to my knowledge haven't pursued the sport in any fashion in their young adulthood.

Re Gippsland railways of yore, the Walhalla Goldfields Railway has a working diesel rail link from the Walhalla township to Thomson Station (around 10 km, from memory), while a rail trail extends along much of the rest of the (former) line. Very spectacular. The old line snakes through some rugged mountain terrain, sort of following the course of the Thomson River in the gully below. Great camping and hiking country. Oh, and canoeing, swimming, horseriding (yecchhh), you name it.

Re SGR, you might find this gallery of interest, if you haven't already seen it. The lady missus and I took the same journey only a couple of weeks after those photos were taken. I'll myself post a few pics from our trip in the fullness of time.

31/1/09 11:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I did my own trainspotting tonight and reopened my blog in a moment of madness

1/2/09 9:21 AM  
Blogger Craig w said...

Greetings again Jacob.

I shall avoid references to railways after this one but....

Brake van originates before the use of continuous brakes on trains. At this time the only brakes were on the loco and the brake van. The introduction of contiuous braking (Westinghouse mostly out here)rather changed things and the term Guards van has come more into use, though during the steam era brake van was more common.

For some reason though Passenger brake vans (ie for use on Passenger trains) still tended to be called "brake vans" where as Guards van and Brake van were both used to describe vans used for goods workings.

I am off to a BBQ now.... my cousin has brought a 1949 Dodge Kingsway Custom to restore. We want to see if we can start it up and go for a quick drive :)

regards to all

1/2/09 11:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

But Craig, this is a trainspotting thread, so you're welcome to make railway references til the cows come home. Thanks anyway for the deep background on brake & guards vans, very illuminating.

Trust you enjoyed the bbq. The Dodge antiquity sounds very interesting indeed.

1/2/09 8:10 PM  
Blogger Kathy Farrelly said...

Hi Craig. How are you going? Did you end up going for a spin in the Dodge?

Btw, you are banging your head against a brick wall with old Ernest....
He has one eye firmly shut, mate!

Extremely frustrating though.

He deals in personal opinion not fact.I remember not so long ago when Old Ern reckoned that Rudd's grocery watch was definitely a goer as prices had decreased in his town... I provided a link for an article that actually stated that grocery prices had risen, and that pensioners were actually worse off.

Never heard a peep from him.

1/2/09 9:07 PM  
Blogger Craig w said...

Hi Kath and Jacob,

The BBQ was very good indeed. The dodge was an interesting play toy for the day... we managed to get it turned over - but not started! It looks like the diaphragm in the fuel pump has perished so now my cousin needs to source one of them. I had a bit of an infatuation with vintage and veteran cars a few years back but never acted on it. Once we have the kids out of our greying hair I would love to buy a restored 1920s car to potter around in. The more "mundane" cars dont go for all that much at all. My dear wife has hinted that the only other car going in the garage has to be canoe shaped. I am looking for a Schwimmwagen at the moment but I dont think thats what she means!
Anyway, we will get this dodge moving eventually. My 18 year old daughter is in love with it...she was even polishing it yesterday.

I swore off Webdiary a while ago and have managed to stick to it up until now. But a lot of comments on the ME threads skirt very close indeed to holocaust denial and other less savoury ideals.

Personally, I think both sides have rocks in their head. Israel should pull its head in big time - dear old Damo mentioned withdrawing to the pre 1967 borders and I think thats a pretty fair suggestion. But at the same time, the non Jewish countries and political entities are going to have to stop the Jew baiting and recognise the place is there - and there for good.

Of course, neither of these things will happen so it will go on and on.

I just dont think that the German WW2 exterminations need to be diminished nor the word Nazi thrown in everytime Israel is criticized. Its really that simple and I will keep at a few of them until they tone it down a bit.

They will still be bigots in private but that is their problem!

Jacob, if you feel like a real thrill you can spend a day at either the Bellarine peninsula railway or the Castlemaine - Maldon railway and drive a steam loco.

Thats on my list of things to do, along with diving with Great Whites in SA.

Regards,

2/2/09 6:08 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Craig, the Dodge sounds like a terrific little family project. Perhaps you could post photos of it somewhere when you've all got it together a bit more.

I too am self-banned from Webdiary. Still read fairly regularly, up to a point anyway, but feel no particular need to post there again.

Yes, the holocaust stuff ranges from revisionism almost to denialism. The Nazi comparisons swing both ways, with both Israel and Hamas (previously it was Fatah) being criticised for such tendencies or even outright emulation. Result = a dog's breakfast to be avoided.

You've got a point about the Nazi extermination program, of course. Industrial scale killing certainly requires a lot of thought, institutionalised planning, resourcing and effort. That ought not be diminished, as you rightly say.

The guy you've been sparring with at WD also has a point, up to a point. The Nazi's eugenics program did, in the early years of the Third Reich, whett their appetite for extermination, with large scale 'euthanasia' of the mentally ill, 'feeble-minded', etc. (Whereas in the free world, the USA for example, they never went beyond the extreme of a program of involuntary sterilisation.) It's arguable that it helped 'normalise' the procedural disposal of untermenschen. To my mind, however, those practices don't warrant the centrality that guy gives them.

Anyway (correct me if I'm wrong) the guy at some point asserts the death camps were in large part focussed on supplying labour for the Nazi war machine. The obvious problem for him with that line of argument is the existence of the gas chambers. Ah well, thank god I'm self-banned.

Oh yeah, those railways you mentioned are certainly on my list of things to check out, as I do have a fondness for trains, though perhaps not to the extent you have.

By the way, SGR has a program which allows you to drive one of theirs "under mainline conditions", whatever that means. Could be worth adding to your list.

2/2/09 10:59 PM  
Blogger Craig w said...

Jacob,

The term "Concentration Camp" is a bit of a misnomer in some ways. While that was the original "ideal", later on the places existed to work people to death. In addition to these were the places such as Austwitz (spelling) which were intended as extermination camps. That place was responsible for the killing of approx 1.5 million people between 1942 and early 1945. Its the sort of numbers you simply cant get your head around.

Anthony Nolan is correct about the killing of various disabled people in that they were euthenased. On my reading, the vast majority were done by lethal injection although gassing was apparently tried too.

Again though, the information I have seen does not indicate it was a catalyst to the larger scale exterminations. It seems to have been more of a sideline project if you can forgive the distasteful connotations.

While the Nazis had tried establishing ghettos, as they expanded the areas they held this became more problematical. I think what happened was almost a foregone conclusion.

I am not so sure I will bother replying again on WD. Firstly it is distracting from what the thread is about and secondly he is trying to use it as a diversion to get away from the fact that Jews were a central part of the extermination program.

I am not so much into real railways as model railways to be honest. My primary Australian interest was in the NSW railways between 1855 - 1930 and I did a pile of research on this. What I was interested only exists in photographs and archives and the present day scene holds little interest to me.

If you are interested, I can send you a few dodge pics and a bit of waffle about it. "My" blog is our group model railway blog (Scalefour Society Sydney area group!)

regards,

Craig

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