Monday Morning Photo. 17/11/08.

G'day all, Saturday arvo in Bundaberg, not much happening apart from 999 pottering around the yard and recieving some attention from my two fellow travellers, Graeme Westwood and Kevin Taig. I remember this day well as we parked our kits in the Cloak Room while we went up the street for a feed and when we got back the station was deserted and there was no way we could retrieve our stuff. It gets cool at night even in Bundy sometimes and with no blanket or sleeping bag you feel it, I wrapped myself up in a copy of "The Australian". I think we camped in a railmotor trailer in a siding down by the river.

The other three shots are all around Rockhampton again, English Electric 1202 is southbound on a fast goods and 520 is knocking wagons around Port Curtis yard.

1108 is working in from the west through Port Curtis Junction and the C16 is ambling past McConnell's Hotel in Denison Street. Just another outlet for the dreaded local drop "Mac's Rockhampton Beer". There was never a better advertisement for Temperance.

Best regards,

Peter Bruce.

Monday Morning Photo. 10/11/08.

G'day all, the elegant building behind the C16 and it's ballast train is the original Rockhampton Railway Station. Elegant it certainly was but the Refreshment Room and Bar offered Mac's Rockhampton Beer and the three thirsty travellers fronting the bar soon found out what an evil brew it was, one sip each was enough. As I remember we were far enough north to wash our mouths out with something from the Carlton Brewery at Cairns.....but maybe we even settled for a 4xxx or two. I think Mac's went to the wall not long after and I like to think that we helped it on it's way.

Anyway the unknown C16 is about to meander the full length of Denison Street. Does this still happen in Rocky?? Minus the 4-8-0 of course.

614 has just left the Port Curtis yard heading out of Rockhampton, I suppose this is suburbia now. The two Garratts are meeting at Kabra which was the junction for Mount Morgan and the coalfields to the southwest. The predecessor of todays monster coal trains can be seen at the right of the frame. We took the very short mixed train approaching out to Mount Morgan on this late afternoon..... I think we had probably arrived from Emerald behind the other Garratt. My memory is very patchy at this distance, it was all but 45 years ago.

More Queensland next week.

Best regards,

Peter Bruce.

http://teenagerailfan.blogspot.com

Monday Morning Photo. 3/11/08.

G'day all, the climate in coastal Queensland was pretty humid and oppressive when I took these photos in early December 1964 and I think that comes across in the shot taken at Rockhampton Loco. For those who didn't know them these QGR Garratts were painted a strong, bright red. They worked west of Rocky, out to Mount Morgan and Emerald having been displaced off the North Coast line by diesels, this was well before the massive expansion and electrification of the Central Queensland coal traffic. Even so Rockhampton was a very busy rail centre.

I don't remember the location of the other photo, somewhere north of Rockhampton is the best I can manage, 1070 is on a southbound roadside goods I think and the van of our northbound train is just visible at the left of the picture. A large part of our 2000 mile return journey from Brisbane to Cairns was in the van of trains just like this one. 12 to 14 hours for 100-120 miles wasn't unusual. These were the least important trains on the North Coast line and they got put away for every other train. 3 hours in some remote loop was par for the course, a couple of crosses and maybe a run-through. A great way to see the country though. As long as you had enough tucker and a waterbag you were pretty much OK.

Maybe more QGR* next week.

*Queensland Government Railways.

Regards,

Peter Bruce.

Monday Morning Photo. 13/10/08.

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G'day all, seems that my posting of last night was recieved in full by at least some of you....good.....I wondered what had happened.

Seems like a good excuse to post another picture.

Regards,

Peter Bruce.

P.S. Anniversary of the Benalla tragedy, three people killed when steam hauled special collided with a B-Double on a level crossing just outside Benalla. Good friend Adrian Kiely among them.

Monday Morning Photo. 13/10/08

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G'day all, still having internet problems, gigabytes disappearing down the plughole, but I'll risk going on line for a little while so that MMP appears on time.

A couple of VR classics this time, in memory of Bob Lawrence, a long time Victorian engineman and a member of this group who passed on September 30th and who was seen off by a large gathering of family and friends at Springvale last Tuesday.

In the early '60s Tom Murray and Norm White ran a series of weekend excursions which catered to railfans by attracting tourists in large numbers. The railfans and the tourists were both kept happy, while the tourist went off on bus trips interesting things happened on the rails.

684 is at Beechworth coupled to the "Norman" car and about to set off back to the junction with the Bright line at Everton. I can't remember the year or the sequence of events just that it was a very interesting and varied trip.

995 is at Geelong and we are about to depart for Melbourne as the weekend away winds down. This was the end of a tour of the southwest of the state, we got into SA as far as Millicent as I remember.

Perhaps someone out there can fill in the considerable gaps in my memory?

Older postings can be viewed at http://teenagerailfan.blogspot.com

Take a look at the links too, Mike Venn has a much better claim to have been a teenage railfan than me. Compared to him I was practically geriatric!

Best regards,

Peter Bruce.

Bob Lawrence.

I posted this on Wednesday 1/10/08 and I thought I should add it here.


Mickey Burrett rang me last night with the sad news that Bob passed at about 2am. Bob was diagnosed earlier in the year with cancer and had been in hospital in Dimboola for some time. He was a life time railwayman, he must have had very close to 40 years service with the Victorian Railways and it's successors and also with National Rail at Dimboola. Bob was also an active unionist and office holder with the Australian Federated Union of Locomotive Enginemen and was qualified as a steam locomotive driver.

He was also a railway enthusiast and a modeller and a very sociable bloke. I will miss him and those of you who knew Bob will too.

As far as I know he is survived by his mum, his brothers, his son and I'm pretty sure at least one grand child, make that three...... And lots of mates.

So long Bob, it's been good to know you.

Peter Bruce.

Monday Morning Photos. 29/9/08.

G'day all, a few more shots from around Albert Park Station, circa 1972. I'm not too sure when the swing door trains finished on the St. Kilda and Port Melbourne lines but I suspect not long after I got these photos because on the same roll I've got a shot of an Hitachi at Albert Park. That was probably my motivation to get off my backside and get the coverage as we used to say. I posted the Arches shot to TramsDownUnder so if you've seen it already and don't wish to see it again...look away now!!

There are a couple more interesting shots, maybe I'll post them mid-week before I move on.

Many thanks to John Thompson, Bob Wilson and John Phillips for their always interesting regular postings.

Best regards,

Peter Bruce.

P.S. Mick Duncan....too bad about the Cats but they certainly had their chances, a great pressure game by the Hawks.