faulcon1

Here's what Peter Wherrett thought about the then new HJ V8 Premier

Here's two encounters with animals on the road that I've had. The first was in the Snowy Mountains region and the second was just outside Rugby. This is not Rugby in the UK for it didn't have a railway and it took 90 seconds to drive through and I think it would take more than 90 seconds to drive through Rugby in the UK. At Rugby in NSW you could also count the number of residents on two hands. It isn't a big place. The second photo they're not cows but bulls of various ages. They're both feeding from the roadside growth something many rural local authorities allow farmers to do especially in times of drought. Although the paddocks next to the road the sheep are on look to have good growth the farmer who owns the sheep may not own those paddocks.

back in the early days the ABC had a program called "Torque" and it's presenter was Peter Wherrett and he was not complimentary on the HJ Holden He basically said it was a 1950's chassis with a whole new set of cloths. He must have been a Ford man because he liked the 5.8 Litre XC Fairmont even though he said the 5.8 litre motor was only useful if you were towing a caravan 40 feet in length.

Then if we go far to the west away from Sydney we come to charming little towns like Hillston which is on the Lachlan River, very low at this time in March 2020 due to the drought. But the residents of the town weren't worried as they sit above the huge Artisian Basin which covers below ground 1,700,000 sq km and has twice as much water in it than Sydney harbour has so the local councils sink a pipe down into it and extract the water, purify it and deliver it to all the homes. So whilst people in Sydney were on water restrictions, Hillston wasn't. This was taken on a Sunday afternoon with all the shops shut including the local supermarket so the town was dead. The time was about 7pm daylight savings time. The other photo is of the main street of Cobar in far western NSW and this is a mining town 265km up the road from Hillston. The building on the left is a former hotel where accommodation was on the first floor and the bars on the ground floor now repurposed for shops. It took me three hours to drive from Hillston to Cobar and it felt odd putting my right foot back on the accelerator not having had my foot on it for the last three hours as I was using cruise control. Speed limits on the two lane roads out there is 110kph or about 70mph but one can go much faster if one wants to for there are no police out there sitting by the roadside with a speed camera as the traffic (such as it is) is just too few and far between. Temperature was 18-20 degrees so very pleasant, but in February (our summertime) temperatures out there can get over mid 40's and up closer to 50 degrees and that's not pleasant.

Not all roads in Australia are long and straight or bitumen either some are dirt or gravel like this road between Coramba and Dorrigo. I met some "grey nomads" on this road and they were flabbergasted that I was driving my low slung road car on this road. They said to me "oh no we're going down a dirt road so we must have a big 4x4 because that's what big 4x4's are for. They were in a Range Rover, Landrover Discovery and a Toyota Landcruiser. A complete waste of money all them if this is the sort of roads they bought them for. For those in the UK this is not someone's private driveway, this is a main road without human habitation. Then deep in the forest is the Coopernoock Creek (not stream) My little car which has been all over the states of New South Wales and Victoria and has also been over a fair amount of Queensland. Next is to take it to South Australia via Victoria.

An English YouTuber called HubNut said that Australia does long straight roads very well and so is this the type of long straight road he may have had in mind. This was taken from my dash cam and is between Hay and Balranald in south western New South Wales

Here's two views taken from the railway land which is over my hedge. The hedge is to the left of the thin tall wooden power pole. The second is of a train on the railway line. The grade is deceptive but is actually 1 in 33.

Here is part 2 with a bit more colour footage.

This is another VHS video that never made it to the DVD era. Once again as with the Steaming back to the Sixties I've made numerous inquiries but all to no avail. There is a fair amount of B&W footage on this production and classical music where no sound can be added.

Here's a photo of the first model of Falcon in Australia the XK which suffered from weak suspension being made for smooth (at the time) American roads, not potholed bitumen and dirt roads of Australia. Also a Ford Zodiac and a 64 Cortina. As can be appreciated these photo were taken some time ago and the little boy is me. I've grown a bit since then.

The third and final video of TWC's epic road journey.

Here's the second installment of the trio of videos of taking TWC to Goodwood Racing Circuit from Devil's Bridge Wales and back again.

On the 8th & 9th of May 3801 returned to the Blue Mountains so I took a couple of shots from my favourite location, out the back of my place on railway property. She seemed to work harder on the 9th whereas on the 8th the two diesels with her (Alco 4490 and GM 4201) were doing most of the work on the 1 in 33 grade. For the second day I stood on a pile of ballast and as I turned to follow her my feet sank into the ballast but not evenly.

Here's another loco in green livery a colour she wore but of a darker shade when built in the late 1920's. In those days she had a round top firebox with a boiler pressure of 180psi super heated and after WW2 she and her 74 sisters were painted in black with red lining. In the 1950's nearly all of them were given Belpaire boilers with a raised boiler pressure to 200psi and redesigned cabs. Mechanical lubrication replaced the original sight feed lubrication. One loco 3616 was given in 1957 a Giesel Oblong Ejector which raised boiler efficiency to over 81%. Three have been preserved being 3609, 3616 and 3642. Only 3616 and 3642 have worked in preservation although 3616 hasn't steamed since 1973. She went into preservation service in 1969.

Don't know if this counts but here's a 2-6-0 painted in a fictitious livery for a filming job for Cadbury's Chocolate to launch their "Joyville". The filming company paid for the repaint into "Joyville" livery and back again into black with the coaches being painted back into tuscan red. The loco 2705 was built by Hunslet of Leeds and introduced in 1913 for railway construction work and the loco was one of eight locos numbered 2701-2708. In 1917 they were taken into government railway stock. Their appearance altered somewhat as they were given 25 class boilers and 50 class tenders and worked branch line traffic in the Narrabi district in far northwestern NSW. All were withdrawn between 1957 and 1960 with 2705 being the only survivor. 2705 has been painted green and lined but she worked her railway revenue earning career in the days of steam in unlined black.

Ok so he had a rant and yes I watched the whole video. But he has a right it's a called freedom of speech and with the new A2/2 with it's undulating running plate that's not good and he also has a point of Hornby Magazine up selling what is basically mediocre quality. Going on in the mag about turned metal buffers and dummy coupling hooks as if they're the greatest thing to come along since sliced bread when locos have had those items of detail for years. Show us something new that's never been done before. Now as to the Heljan 25/3 I notice it has full metal wheels and Tamworth Castle is a 25/3 with spoked wheels. One of the criticisms of the Bachmann 25/3 when it came out all those years ago was that it didn't have spoked wheels and the Heljan model doesn't either. I also don't believe that we have to buy the latest and greatest of every model just because it happens to be the latest. To my eyes and to my eyes only to me the Heljan 25/3 is not a significant leap in advancement over the older Bachmann 25/3. But that's just my opinion. I'm not asking anyone here to agree with me. I'm not saying I'm right and you're all wrong. It's just my opinion. You have your opinion and I respect it even if I don't agree with it for it is your right to voice it and it's my right to voice mine. Freedom of speech. Fight to keep that freedom. I have a Heljan class 52 which apparently the front is not the absolute correct shape and it didn't get corrected until the Dapol class 52 appeared. But I'm happy and contented with my Heljan model and I won't buy the Dapol model just for that.

Here's an video of a model 70 going from Wales back to Essex where it was built. It was a little on the "sick" side but new old parts were bought for it and they transformed it. The owner then gets it to 70mph down a hill on a dual carriageway. The top speed of the cars was actually 82mph, a frightening thought in something so flimsy. Both cars shown once belonged to HubNut but TWC's engine was knackered so TPA donated it's engine to TWC and Zel bought TPA and took another engine from another Invacar to get TPA going. TWC retains the original Invacar seat but TPA has been fitted with a Citroen BX seat which as HubNut mentions in the video is a lot more comfortable. HubNut thought that TWC was the one to get going as it was in much better condition externally than TPA and that is very clear in the video photo. Zel is spending time on trying to get the fiberglass body back to what it was originally when he isn't repairing the old motor. As HubNut says these car were designed for disabled people to go to the shops, library or the doctor. They weren't designed for idiots to take on long road trips even though they are quite capable of doing it. I beg to differ for with a top speed of over 80mph they must have been designed for longer journeys and motorway running.

Who is BDMR?

Here's a Hornby Magazine review of the Heljan 25/3 with Mike Wild telling us how it has full buffer beam detail, turned metal buffers, separately fitter wipers and flush glazing which has been around for donkeys years. Well my Bachmann 25/3 has all that so that's no major advancement. I can see the only real major advancement being the purchase price which will advance to a higher level.

It's a pink tongue early in the morning so that the reason it's "flat". Being cold blooded they need to warm up which in the winter takes a while. I had another one which used to visit and like to live under the house. I fed it about 12 snails once and I just tipped them out of a bucket nearby. The lizard slowly and cautiously crept up on the fleeing snails not wanting to startle them and slowly ate everyone of them. Having no teeth it crushed the snail in it's jaws and at the end was a small pile of crushed snail shells. In the summer months I left a saucer of water out for it to drink. Once I startled it at the back door and it recoiled, opened it's mouth and hissed at me, whereupon I bent down open my mouth and and said Blaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh!!! very loudly. The pink tongue closed it's mouth and ran like the clappers with me thinking I'll show you who's boss around here. The brickwork is not holding up the house as the house is on piers.

I have a garden bed with Dahlias in it at the moment that would have prevented this photo of wildlife that visits being taken. This in the winter time

There is one thing that Australia does really well but it's not a good thing for the people of Australia and that's Political Correctness. Only recently there was a bill that was going to sail through the senate put up by the Greens that in government literature it would be illegal to refer to family members as mum, dad, brother, sister, grandpa and grandma. The reason stated was that some families have two mums or two dads and a sister maybe a brother and vice versa. Grandpa may be grandma and the other way round too. The greens and the ruling Liberal government ministers thought it would be a shoe in but the government backbenches revolted and with the aid of One Nation party had it defeated in the Senate (Lords in the UK). The greens went ballistic. Who remembers making Airfix model kits as a young boy and how the artwork on the box lid was such an inspiration with Spitfires chasing and shooting down 109's or B29's dropping bombs and a Lancaster coming into land from a bombing raid on Germany and on fire with pieces shot out of the aircraft. Well that was deemed too graphic with the possibility that it may damage young boys minds by Australian do gooders and they forced Airfix to alter the artwork so that it showed no "violence" and that was way back in the 1970's. Australia has a very long history of invasive political correctness. Until quite recently it was almost illegal in Australia to publicly refer to China as a communist country. China was to be referred to as a "one party state with a capitalist outlook". The word communist was not allowed to be said for fear of upsetting Beijing.

Here's the latest video of the launch of 3801 by Transport Heritage NSW

You thank Australia in a large part for the rise of the Chinese navy for they've been buying our iron ore for years and iron ore is needed for the production of steel and steel is needed for the building of ships. Our politicians here don't no the difference between investment and ownership which has seen Chinese business people buying up not only vast tracts of our country but also residential property as well. Many an Australian has be cheated out of a home by a foreign Chinese buyer. The Aussies select a home in Sydney for 1.5 million and haggle the price down to 1.1 million and have then almost got the money for a 10% deposit. Whereupon a foreign Chinese buyer walks in and gives the owner 1.5 million and the Aussies have lost the house. Yet in China you can invest in Chinese owned companies by buying up to 49% of the shares but no more than that for absolute control will remain in Chinese hands. Western companies should be the same.