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G;day all, well I said I was feeling a bit homesick so maybe it's time to come back to Victoria and the old Victorian Railways; back where I caught the bug. Early memories, Platform One Centre at Flinders Street, a gloomy morning and a rake of dark red wooden corridor cars waiting for an engine to come around the viaduct from North Melbourne. It eventually passed us and seemed to me to almost disappear in the distance before it finally eased back down onto our train and coupled up.
Going to the country by train back then was a big thing for a family, your mum and dad were in a semi panic for a couple of days beforehand so you'd always be at the station and have the luggage stowed way before the loco appeared. As the engine backed down towards its train a knot of onlookers, mostly dads and kids, would always gather to watch it couple up. It was a ritual that for me meant the start of our holiday and as exciting for me was the train trip there and back.
Attached are a couple of shots from the VR of old, nothing much to do with the above and about 20 years later.
R740 on the Swan Hill train at Pyramid and a Sunday morning get together at Heywood down in the South West. I think 539 and 546 were on our train, an Australian Railway Exploration Association weekend trip to Mount Gambier and Millicent and I have a feeling that there was another goods in the offing somewhere, backed out along the branch perhaps. Maybe someone can fill in some of the lamentable gaps in my memory.
Until next week,
Peter Bruce.
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