DavidB-AU

Another video of the Fotoz Flyer at Zig Zag. You can see how quickly the bush has recovered from the fire. Sadly the same can't be said for the tourist railway. Cheers David

The Spirit of the Outback, probably the only regular loco-hauled passenger train in Queensland likely to be running in 2015. The Sunlander finishes at the end of the year when the third diesel tilt train enters service, and the Inlander and Westlander are expected to be axed. There may still be occasional Bundaberg/Rockhampton tilt train replacements during maintenance but these are becoming increasingly rare. Cheers David

Many of them will be in the National Archives in Kew. Reports relating to Scotland may be in the National Archives of Scotland. Reports relating to Wales may be in Archives Wales. Some may be in in county archives. But all should be searchable through the National Archives catalogue: http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ Cheers David

6029's load trial. Cheers David

Some recently posted video of the Ekka shuttles, recorded over all 5 days. Cheers David

That would make a better Lickey banker than the panniers that were actually used. Cheers David

A cracking shot of the Fotoz Flyer from a home made drone. http://postimg.org/image/6bj9v99o3/ Cheers David

Almost the correct manner. The last long whistle is supposed to continue until the locomotive completely occupies the crossing. Cheers David

The long-long-short-long whistle was strangely appropriate given the loco's origins. Cheers David

5917 on a private charter to Lithgow. Cheers David

X217 was restored (relatively) recently by the Richmond Vale Railway. Cheers David

Another brilliant Bevan Wall video. This is ear candy as well as informative. Cheers David

New livery for the Hunter railcars. http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2490219/refreshed-newcastle-trains-hits-the-line/ Cheers David

Geoscience Australia has released its annual update of the Railway Map of Australia. http://www.ga.gov.au/corporate_data/79566/Railways2014_WEB.pdf This PDF is 48MB. It is scaled 1:5000000 for printing on A0 paper to make a poster. Cheers David

6029's first main line test run. Cheers David

This was last month but I have only just seen the video. Notice how much 380t of locomotives shake the ground at 2:54. Cheers David

BB18¼ 1079 is back in service after a 2 year overhaul. She worked the Ekka shuttles this weekend after the C17 failed on the transfer run to Mayne on Thursday. The Ekka steam train runs again on Wednesday and next weekend. Cheers David

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egbWHH_5PLI

Pacific National receives genset locomotives PACIFIC National, Australia, has taken delivery of the first two of seven multi-engine N-ViroMotive locomotives from National Railway Equipment Company (NREC), United States. Pacific National will use the locomotives for shunting operations at the BlueScope steelworks at Port Kembla in New South Wales and it expects to receive the remaining five units over the next few months. The four-axle locomotives have a nominal power rating of 1.19MW, derived from two Cummins QSK19 engines and share the same gensets, control system and other critical key components with NREC's six-axle 1200 class demonstrators which were delivered to Australia in May 2013. http://www.railjournal.com/index.php/locomotives/pacific-national-receives-genset-locomotives.html?channel=528

Further to this, the Kuranda train is one of the few that actually runs at a profit. QR will have to replace the 1720s eventually. Upgrading the line would be prohibitively expensive, plus the 90t locos are simply too big for some of the tunnels anyway. Cheers David

QR has recently bought 1723, 1724, 1725, 1732, 1738, 1744, 1745, 1746, 1754 and 1765 from Aurizon. AIUI one more is going to get a Kuranda livery and the others will mainly operate infrastructure trains plus a bit of shunting at Mayne. There are GM diesels 20 years older than the last 1720s still in service south of the border so they are going to be around for a while yet. I'm told there is also an agreement that 1770 will be sold/transferred from Auziron to QR Heritage when no longer required. As to a possible replacement, something like the new 1600hp gensets bought by Pacific National for Bluescope Steel workings could be a possibility. Especially where they might spend a lot of time waiting around doing nothing and/or moving at low speed. Cheers David

And for those you haven't yet seen it, the 48s in the new John Holland livery. Cheers David

Vintage GMs and Alcos on SSR 1877 out West. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTN1u6bTB9g Cheers David