Monday 13 September 2010

Monday Evening Photo. 13/09/2010.



G'day all, Brisbane has three major city stations, Roma Street, Central and South Brisbane. South Brisbane in those days had no direct cross-river connection to the other two and Central was served only by suburban trains while Roma Street served both suburban and long distance trains. As well as providing all south of the river services South Brisbane was the terminal for interstate services to and from New South Wales.
On our 1963 trip we spent some time in Brisbane and usually rode the last train to a suburban terminus and slept in the cars after they were stabled, I don't think I slept in a bed for over a month.
Most of the suburban services were provided by loco hauled trains and only a few were diesel hauled. The rolling stock was a mixture of modern stainless steel cars built for conversion to electric multiple unit sets and elderly wooden bodied compartment cars.
Today's photos are all at or near the three city stations. 1036 is at Roma Street and is on a pretty typical country day train , a miscellaneous, not to say motley, rake of wooden cars headed by a clean, dark green Pacific although it could as easily sport a baby blue and white diesel.
All the rest are suburban trains, 754 is approaching South Brisbane with a rake of the aforementioned wooden compartment cars and the three shots of Central show what a smokey hollow it was in those days.
I havn't been to Brisbane for some time and I just had a look at the city on NearMap, I'd say it's pretty much unrecognisable as the same town. It was known then as a very big country town and had very little high-rise developement. It certainly wasn't anything like the southern cities. I liked it.
Just to round this posting off I've also attached a later photo of the evening tramway peak on the Southside, not too far from South Brisbane station. At the time the Brisbane City Council tramways ran a really efficient and intensive city and suburban service. Sadly the Council headed by the Lord Mayor Clem Jones, destroyed the tramways in favour of bus services in the late 1960s.
Most of the negatives I'm using at the moment are none too flash and require a fair bit of work to make them half-way presentable, hence my tardiness.
All my previous postings can be found at;
Regards,
Peter Bruce.

Monday 6 September 2010

Monday Morning Photo. 6/09/2010.

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G'day all, I misread the timetable last week and had us arriving at Wallangarra from Sydney when we were actually departing for Brisbane. So for what it's worth we arrived at 7.48am and at 8.20am we departed northbound.
The grand in name if not in performance "Brisbane Express" became just "The Mail" on the Queensland Government Railways narrow gauge metals and was allowed over 10 hours for the 223 odd miles to Roma Street Station in Brisbane.
The old QGR had a few rather distinctive practices one of which was the seemingly haphazard allocation of locomotive numbers. For instance we had engine no 52 out of Wallangarra, it was a B181/4 Pacific but goodness knows what Nos. 51 and 53 were. These Pacifics were first introduced to traffic in 1926 and 52 was one of the early ones having a small tender.
Anyway we trundled along until we reached Glen Niven. At Cambooya the southbound "Mail" turned up behind 1043, one of the more modern 1950s Pacifics.
Toowoomba was reached at 1.55 pm for a 30 minute refreshment stop, shortly after we arrived 1014 arrived in the dock platform with No19, the connection from Roma.
Extra cars were added to our train here and we departed for Brisbane at 2.25 behind another BB181/4, its number long forgotten.
By 1963 the days of leisurely long distance travel were drawing to a close, car ownership was coming within the reach of more and more people and these slow long distance trains just couldn't compete for time or comfort and the mail went over to road or air transport.
That said, Queensland still has some long distance trains and I think I can feel another long train ride coming on. I might go sleeper this time.
Regards,
Peter Bruce.