faulcon1

I find colour photos taken in an era when a steam loco was in everyday operation to be a bad reference source basically because as the photo ages the colours change. If the photograph has been slightly over exposed then the loco's colour will be lighter and if under exposed it will be darker. Unlike today there wasn't all the manipulation programs available to correct over or under exposed photos although I have corrected photos taken on slides where the colours have changed in the last 50 odd years. Some have been successful and some haven't. But they're not railway photos. When you manipulate the colours in photos you manipulate them to what you think is correct which may not be the correct shade of colour that the subject of the photo was at the time that the photo was taken. Memory plays a huge part but memories fade with the passing of the years.

If modelling a road traffic accident for the modern era don't forget that the modern SUV tips over fairly easily due to it's high center of gravity.

Unfortunately Thirlmere has cancelled this years steam festival due to the bushfires which is an odd thing to cancel it for. I'd have thought that local businesses would welcome some extra money from the people at the festival. Apparently not. Anymore progress on the funding to extend loop line operation beyond Buxton?, or is this another dead duck promise. Lots of media reports but no actual action. Is there to be a feasibility study along with consultants and then community consultation with the first two soaking up the majority of the budget. No doubt Green activist and indigenous concerns will have to be addressed and then the whole idea can be put on the back burner until the next election.

I was in a model railway club HO Australian many years ago. There was no exhibition layout but there was a large permanent layout housed in an old Nissan hut. It was on a block of land behind a newsagents who owned the hut. The layout was end to end running with 5 drivers all sat at one end of the shed in a row. Control was analog. Scenery was minimal with no one really wanting to spend time doing scenery. Running trains to a timetable was all they were interested in. I seem to remember the club holding a scenery night and hardly anyone showed up. It seemed to be a "closed" group and being no social media in those days only those who knew someone in the club would know of it's existence. There was one bloke there I remember who got rather angry when one of his locos refused to move and so he picked the loco up and slammed it onto the concrete floor. He was the only member I know who was asked to leave and never come back. He was absent for quite sometime and when he did return he was then asked to leave. I found out that he'd been in prison for pedophilia and we had some young boys starting in the club. So a good decision. Other members including one young bloke would not pay attention to the timetable when he was running the large marshalling yard and when a I driver asked for a train he would ignore them throwing the whole timetable out as after that know one ran to time. Other wealthier members would bring nearly all their rolling stock and put it on the layout so that other members wouldn't get a chance to run their stock. That created animosity among members. Young people were generally welcomed but the age of the other modellers there were all their dad's age. In due course the rights to use the hut changed when the newsagent changed hands and the club was evicted from the hut. For sometime nothing happened but there is a club now where members go to each others homes and run layouts there. According to a member I knew from the former club members no longer take their rolling stock to these layouts but run the layout with whatever that member has. There is European, US, British and Australian layouts whatever interests that particular member. There are no landlords unless you count the bank or the wife so there's usually no one to evict the modeller. Layouts tend to be in garages so you don't upset the family with loads of men tramping through the house. He said they often seem to spend a lot of time "talking" rather than actually running trains. Layouts are small to medium. There is still an attitude of "you need to be a few sandwiches short of a picnic" to be interested in model railways here in Australia and young people getting into the hobby usually come to it via their dads. You won't find any loft layouts in Australia because Australian houses don't have lofts that are usable for railways and in summer you would bake as lofts often get well over 40 degrees so garages and purpose built sheds are the "norm" here. One bloke I knew modelled O gauge Australian for which there was nothing available at that time. He had a large purpose built shed in his garden and it's still there. He built an entire streamlined diesel train out of Golden Circle pineapple tins. A European shunter was powered by a cars windscreen wiper motor. He developed his own DCC control long before DCC was ever on the market. He died a few years back and other friends of his come round to his place and run his trains. They take their wives and girlfriends who sit and chat (as women do) to this late modellers wife.

This morning the heavens finally opened and gave us good to flash flooding rain which we haven't had for a very long time. I was heading home from work at around 5am and recorded nature's little light show via my dash cam.

The chap who lives over the road from me grew up in Grenfell in mid western NSW. His mum and dad's house was one of the last to be connected to town water and he said that people used to come out to his house with new jerry cans to fill them up from one of their three 50,000litre tanks. They hated the taste of town water and much preferred the taste of pure rain water. Out there the council in conjunction with the water authorities made sure that people removed their rain water tanks hence the queue of locals. Councils are notorious for being very narrow minded and ours is no exception and I ought to know as I work for them.

We've had wild media reports of "The whole of Australia is in flames". Well it isn't. Many in the media would make wonderful photographers for they love to enlarge everything. I remember the 1993 - 1994 bushfires here where i live and the local radio station we were all urged to listen to said that two large towns one which I was living in had been evacuated. Everyone came out of their house to see if they were the only ones left. So finding it all BS we went in and turned the radio off. This was before the internet. Where I am it's ok if the wind comes from the west or better still north west then the smoke is blown away from where I am. But once the wind changes to the south and we get a southerly buster which is strong cooling winds as all cool winds come from the south here then the smell of bush fire smoke from the south was very prominent. The air was also thick with smoke and blackened gum tree leaves. Fuel loads in the bush here are huge too and I can remember going into the bush with many other people and picking up dead branches off the ground. Many people used their 4x4's and a trailer to get deep into the bush to get the dead firewood. Then the politicians locked up the national parks and no one could get in hence the rise in natural gas heating. The last time I bought wood for heating is cost $1,000. But that $1,000 of firewood would not last for one whole winter. In the summer people used the dead wood out of the national parks for their BBQ's Now BBQ's are gas but it certainly doesn't smell the same. Before the 93 - 94 bushfires it was illegal to install rain water tanks in NSW. Many older houses had corrugated iron tanks but those people were supposed to disconnect them from their roof gutters. But many never did. The driest country in the world and you weren't allowed to have rain water tanks. The state was to be the sole supplier of water for drinking, washing and watering. Then after those bushfires suddenly companies sprang up who you could buy rain water tanks from. Here now we're on level two water restrictions which means no using a hose to wash your car or water your garden and even high pressure water blasters are banned. If you want to wash your car then you have to use buckets of water which takes an age and is ridiculous for it uses far more water than a high pressure water blaster. If you have rain water tanks you have to have a sign stating that you have rain water tanks and that your garden is being watered from those tanks, otherwise people will denounce you to the authorities. Some places are on level 6 water restrictions and you're only allowed 83 litres of water a day and that's for everyone in the house. People have been buying crates of bottled water for the water that's trucked in is more chlorine than water. Their lawns and gardens are all dead and the dam that supplied them hasn't got a drop of water in it.

When Pete Waterman own 4472 he changed it's livery to the proper shade of BR green as he reasoned that the loco had never been in the condition it was in apple green. He got deluged in hate mail and from Vicars of all people. One chap accused him of nicking the real Flying Scotsman and putting an imposter in it's place. The Steam Railway photo was of 4472 on standard gauge track but with the broad gauge track next to it hence the joke of being converted to broad gauge. I can also remember when 4-4-0 City of Truro was repainted BR mixed traffic black on the drivers side of the loco at the Seven Valley Railway and that was done as a joke and some people went completely potty. I'd like to see a 9F in BR blue livery. Not the BR blue livery that 6023 wears but the BR blue of the 1970's complete with yellow buffer beams and large arrows of indecision on the tender.

At Seymour in Victoria there were/are two tracks of different gauges side by side. Steam Railway magazine at the time published a photo of Flying Scotsman with the caption underneath that the Australians had converted her to broad gauge or 5'3". OMG what a storm that created and we Aussies laughed our heads off.

Oh dear someones nose is slightly out of joint isn't it. It's called a race but it isn't. It's just parallel running. The steam locos have to observe all speed limits and signals. In no way is it an "open the regulator and go hell for leather". They're too old and valuable for that.

The video starts in Canberra Australia's national capital which is served by a glorified long single siding leaving the mainline at Goulburn. I don't know of any country in the western world where their capital city's rail is just one single long siding. It just goes to show how road focused Australia is. The Canberra line has four station on it Tarago, Bungendore, Queanbeyan and Canberra. The Captains Flat branch left the Canberra branch at Bundendore. The line to Michelago left the Canberra branch line at Queanbeyan. 4-4-0 1210 was built in 1878 and was at her introduction to traffic an express passenger loco. She was built by Beyer Peacock Builders no. 1767. She was later relegated to country branch line work due to more modern and powerful types of loco taking over express passenger workings. She was withdrawn in January 1962 and placed on a plinth at Canberra Railway Station. In September 1984 she was removed from the plinth and placed in the care of the Australian Railways Historical Society Canberra division who restored her to full working order in time for Australia's Bi Centenary in 1988. She is credited with having worked the very first train into Canberra. Three 12 class locos survive from the original 68 locos. 1210, 1219 and 1243. Only 1210 and 1243 have worked in preservation. 1243 worked on the Captains Flat branch line in 1969 where she was given a huge kerosene headlamp for the railway scenes in the Mick Jagger film "Ned Kelly" which was a flop. Oddly enough the Captains Flat line closed in 1968 having only opened in 1940 and like many other closed branch lines in NSW the rails are still there to this day with the grasses and weeds kept short by grazing livestock. 4-6-0 3016 was also built by Beyer Peacock in 1903 Builders No. 4459. But she was built as a 4-6-4 side tank loco for working commuter trains on the Sydney Metropolitan System. When that system was electrified in the 1920's with the 1,500 volt DC system (which it retains to this day) 3016 she was rebuilt as a 4-6-0 tender engine to replace many older types of locos like 1210 on country branch lines. She was rebuilt in the 1930's, super heated in the 1940's and in 1965 she had more miles behind her than any of her 145 sisters nearly 2 million miles. She was withdrawn in February 1972 and originally retained for the Rotary Club in Parramatta in November 1974 but sold to the ARHS Canberra Division in January 1979. Like 1210 they gave her a thorough overhaul to return her to operational condition in the 1980's. Seen here in non authentic blue livery as only one 30T as the rebuilt 4-6-0's were known only ever carried blue livery and that was 3028 painted locally at Dubbo loco depot. Another of Dubbo's 30T's 3144 was repainted apple green with bright red lining. 30T's in their railway service days were painted all over unlined black Today ARHS Canberra has gone into liquidation and although 1210 remains at their site in Canberra where it's rumoured she will be re-plinthed at Canberra Station, 3016 has been transferred along with the Garratt 6029 to the New South Wales Transport Heritage site at Thirlmere. Seven 30T's have survived into preservation 3001, 3016, 3026, 3028, 3075, 3090 and 3102. Only 3016 has been operational of late with others working in preservation being 3001, 3026 and 3102. 3028 and 3090 have never worked in preservation and neither has 3075 which is on a plinth outside the tourist information center at Parkes central western NSW

Well it would never be possible in the UK when there is no will to make it possible. It seem to me there is however a tender full of excuses as to why it's not possible.

I had a look in the station building Mark but it appears to be completely empty. The general waiting room the biggest single room there has nothing but ladders and scaffolding in it. I didn't know there was a model railway in the station building. If that's where the model railway was it doesn't look to promising does it. There's a sign as you drive towards the station building that reads, "Danger Rail Corridor". How can there be any danger when there are no trains running. Still in this age of selfies people will try to take a photo of themselves in front of a piece of infrastructure whilst walking backwards and they'll go ace over apex as they trip on the rails, point rodding, signal wires etc.

These two heavily graffiti-ed DMU's are former 620/720 sets. I think the front set is 631/731 and it was converted by the railways into a Mechanical Track Patrol Vehicle and numbered ML 070. The set behind is retained as a source of spares. The Cooma Monaro Railway secured ownership of both in 2015. An odd way to number vehicles though with a pair usually being 631/731 and never 631/632.

FP11 is a former railway pay bus. It was used in the days when railway employees were paid in cash before electronic deposits as is done today. This railway pay bus is one of seven of a later improved type. They were ordered from Commonwealth Engineering (Comeng) in 1967 and all seven entered service between April and July 1968. The square body is mounted on a 4 wheel chassis and is powered by an underfloor six cylinder Leyland 0.400 horizontal diesel engine driving one axle via a Voith Diwabus model 501 fully automatic hydraulic/mechanical transmission and reversing gearbox. This was then coupled to the Voith final drive to one of the axles. FP11 has inwards opening doors on both sides and a driving position at each end. The wheelbase is 18' (5.49m) and the body is 30' (9.14m). FP11 is also fitted with air conditioning from new. The ends or fronts were taken from Comeng's standard bus model. All railway pay buses ceased operation in 1986 with this rail pay bus FP11 being the last in service on the run from Clyde to Lithgow loco depot, where I worked at the time. Yes FP11 used to bring me my measly wages that the railway paid. As you can see vandals have smashed windows, head and marker lights and sprayed graffiti tags on the body. It's even worse on the other side. The L 7 emblem on the front was the railways emblem in the diesel era for many years. We railway employees said it stood for Late 7 days a week.

With the end of steam operations the need to refuel diesel multiple unit trains was required. The Canberra-Monaro Express was a 8 car (two four car sets coupled together) and was worked by the then state of the art air conditioned DEB sets or 900 class railcars. The fueling facilities were upgraded in 1955 so that 48 class co-co diesel electric branch line type could be refueled here at Cooma.. The photo is looking south towards Bombala. Although this series of photos is taken at what is a preserved railway it's not operational at the present time. When the locals took over they got a bit over enthusiastic and demolished somethings they weren't allowed to demolish. The railway provided tennis courts were demolished. That coupled with questionable operating practices for they were operating on the line north to a place called Charkola has seen their operating license withdrawn. They were using CPH railmotors. The line on either side of Cooma is in a bad state of total disrepair. South towards Bombala railway lines have been removed and timber sleepers have been taken by farmers to use as fence posts. North towards Michelago the situation is the same with trestle bridges which have collapsed so the line such as it is, is well and truly disused which makes finding a thread on the forum to put it in rather difficult. Weeds growing on the permanent way in Cooma make it disused to me only because the society is forbidden to kill or remove the weeds. There are two items of rolling stock in Cooma yard equally disused and now suffering at the hands of mother nature and vandals. They are shown with their history below.

The former loco men's barracks was built in 1941 to replace the original which was located near the loco shed. It housed 12 men and provided bedrooms, kitchen, dining and bathroom facilities for train crews to sleep between shifts. In 1955 a four bedroom extension was added though this wasn't enough and another two barrack blocks were added during the Snowy Hydro Scheme building years. they were demolished about twenty years later.

The turntable is a manually operated table of 60ft in length built by Sellars and replaced an earlier 50ft turntable on the same site.

The goods shed with the small timber building being the first shed completed with the opening of the line in 1889 but the other building was added later with the expanding business of the line.

The District Locomotive Engineer's (DLE) building was built in 1950 to provide office accommodation for the DLE and toilet facilities for staff servicing locomotives in the loco shed. It was relatively unusual to house the "boss" and his staff in the same building. The building was built as a result of increased business brought about by the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Scheme. These days the building is rented out hence the Hill's hoist washing line (an Australian invention)

The locomotive shed is a two road straight through shed and the building originally had vented gables and a ventilation ridge with timber louvres to allow steam to escape. The little building at the side was for a short time in the 1930's the DLE's office. Originally a part of the shed jutted out where the little building now stands but it was demolished following serious damage by a windstorm in the 1960's.

The water tank seen here was originally from Yannergee in north western NSW and was erected here in 2001 by the railways to add to the historic Cooma railway precinct. The original tank was taken out when steam loco servicing gave way to diesels. The water column seen in the previous photo would have been supplied from a tank such as this.

Here's a photo taken through a window of the signal box of the lever frame and two photos of signals in the yard. All the original signals of 1888 were replaced in 1912 when the signal box was built with some signals built installed as late as 1963. The signals installed at Cooma is a representative of the mechanical era of signalling and is considered the most complete installation of it's type in NSW. It is also probably the last fully interlocking mechanically-signalled railway yard in Australia.

Cooma Station lies on the Bombala railway line in southern new South Wales. It was constructed in 1888 and opened in 1889. In the center of the station is a large general waiting room. The scale and size of the building is a reflection of the town's status and prosperity at the time. Cooma Railway Station building is distinguished by rendered mouldings round the windows and doors, cast iron columns with ornate capitals, iron lace work and gables with fretwork and tall finials. In 1928 the south end of the building was modified to become a large refreshment room. This happened because of increased patronage and the completion of the line through to Bombala, the southern terminus. In the 1950's the Snowy Mountains Hydroelectric Power Scheme resulted in a huge increase in passengers and parcel traffic and the station was again modified to cater for this increased traffic. The station closed to all traffic on the 29th May 1989 due to a much improved road between Cooma and Queanbeyan. 90 minutes by car vs 3-4 hours by rail. The building nearest the camera with the windows in the front and side walls is the station mounted signal box, built in 1912. It houses the interlocking lever frame when the yard was upgraded to allow operation from this central location. The lever frame is not the original but is thought to have been installed only five years later in 1917. You can see a dark patch at the base platform front where the point rodding and signal wires connected to the lever frame inside the box. The small building behind the Cooma Station sign is known as an "out of" shed because various items were stored there until required. It's history is not known but it could have been recycled from another station. Recycling of buildings from other stations was common practice on NSW Railways. It was also used as a Lamp Room where Kerosene Lamps, use for lighting signals at night were stored.