Aus Rail Historian

Did a flying visit to Melbourne over the weekend. Only rail action of note was this video of a late running ST22 XPT out of Southern Cross station bound for Sydney races out of twilight into the night as it passes the Beckett St level crossing at Glenroy in Melbourne’s north on Saturday 1 November.

Mystery US donor gives £1m to Strathspey steam railway Aviemore-based The Strathspey Railway said the donation had secured its future.

I wouldn't tell anyone I'd won the lottery, but there would be signs...
www.bbc.com/news/article...

Transport Canberra bus #400 having a bit of an identity crisis today: TC at the front, ACTION on the back & sides.

OTD in 2014: in your own time Ablo…

Terry with his harmonica on a cabin's front porch. In his sunglasses you can see the reflection of the photographer.

Remembering Sonny Terry on his birthday 🎂
At Pete Seeger’s cabin in Beacon, New York
📷 David Gahr, 1958

"In them days I just as soon died - except for my harmonica. It was like a friend who didn’t give a damn if I could see or not."

A couple of minutes away from its arrival at Canberra (Kingston) station, the SP31 service from Sydney rolls through Fyshwick at 11.07 this morning.

This is a valid conclusion but is not new knowledge.An understanding of modern Japanese history & a few English language sources (esp. Hosokawa’s ‘Old Man Thunder’) led many others to the same conclusion decades ago (including me).

If you wanted someone competent, you’d get Assistant Commissioner Claude Lebel (Day of the Jackal)

Who's solving the Louvre robbery? Right answers only… Good Moaning…

A half-decent textbook on Australian geology (I recommend Laseron & Brunschweiler’s ‘Ancient Australia’) will provide a much richer insight into truly deep time before humans. This book is where I learned the Pilbara has some of the oldest known rocks in the world (c. 2 billion years).

Only a couple of minutes after departing Canberra station, the Sydney-bound SP34 Xplorer service passes through the industrial suburb of Fyshwick at midday, Sunday 19 October.

Poster presenting the Lockheed Super Constellation airliner under a spotlight for Qantas airlines in the 1950s.

Today’s mail call: A bit out of my usual collecting path, this is a superb original example of a Qantas airlines poster from the 1950s advertising their new Lockheed Super Constellation airliner, the last of the great turboprop airliners before the arrival of the Boeing 707 & Douglas DC-8 jets.

Departing right on time, a fully booked 3-car Xplorer set departs Canberra (Kingston) station with the 5pm SP36 service bound for Sydney this afternoon.

Informed Sources say last Friday TfNSW issued an RFT for a technical adviser to determine “the minimum viable product for rolling stock for NSW Trainlink to continue to offer a sleeper service between Sydney and Melbourne” and prepare technical artifacts to support a Final Business Case (FBC).

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand:

Signal passed at Danger

Perry is under-appreciated. In a world where a lot of apple cider is cheap & nasty, Perry is a great alternative.

Posted heaps more sightings too. 3 of 5 sightings had Helgas up front. Helgas are also finding their way into trailing units on the Bomen-Port Botany intermodal train.

Sydney Ports (operator of Port Botany) have developed the former NSW Railways’ yard at Enfield into an inland terminal and container storage facility, with regular trip workings between Enfield & Port Botany.

A double-headed pair of ‘Helgas’ (1435/1432) follow closely behind previous trip train T250 with a heavily-loaded trip train T260 from the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal in southwest Sydney at 10.18am on Saturday 12 October 2025.

Following hot on the heels of the previous train, a well-loaded double-headed port shuttle rolls toward the arrivals yard at Botany & the Port. The constrained site of the Port means sidings are between 300-620 metres in length, meaning the yard can be used to break up longer trains for the Port.

Another Danish import (1433) leads trip train T250 from the Minto intermodal terminal in southwestern Sydney through Gelco bound for Port Botany just after 10am on Saturday 12 October 2025.

Next up was an inbound trip train heading for the port. Extensive investment in the Port Botany rail line has seen the line upgraded, duplicated & bi-directionally signalled.

1970s era EMD export (to Australia via Denmark) unit 1437 drags trip train T231 through Gelco bound for the Moorebank Intermodal Terminal in Sydney’s southwest on the morning of Saturday 11 October 2025.

Here, a well-loaded shuttle train has departed the port and passes the location known as Gelco after the long-gone Davis Gelatine Company works which were nearby. Details in Alt text

Veteran first generation Clyde-EMD ‘bulldog’ units S317 & GM27 work a mostly empty trip train (shuttle) T127 from Port Botany to Yennora in western Sydney on Saturday 11 October 2025.

Had a great day yesterday with an old friend Brad on the Botany Line which serves Sydney’s main container port & looking at traces of many sidings & branches once serving industries nearby. The main traffic these days are port shuttles from suburban & regional terminals. Captions: Alt text

Similar to Australia right now. The non-US Anglosphere needs to focus on their own problems.

Yeah, yeah. I know. America is important. But I'm so fucking sick of it absolutely dominating the UK news cycle. I get it. You voted in a turd and now you're swimming in fascist shit. But we have our own rightwing wanklord problems that need more national coverage.

Some poorly made references to the new ‘Ironbottom Sound’, ‘Tokyo Express’, etc.

Same for our ‘Trona’ in NSW, Australia. Only one T.

OTD in 2018: Probably my favourite photo i took that year, with export EMD SD-40 unit C507 leading an empty grain train up Demondrille bank near Harden in southern NSW. Very atmospheric & its about as close as I'll ever get to experiencing a pre-1995 'Jet' freight blasting uphill from Bacchus Marsh.

This was on a repeat cycle on Australian TV on Saturday mornings in the 1970s. Agree that it was often a gateway into the ‘live action’ Beatles.

I remember my older brother really getting into ‘Flipside…’ when it was on Australian TV in the 1980s.

‘The face of… algal bloom’?