Monday morning photo. 13/6/07.

----- Original Message -----

From: Peter Bruce

To: Rick Dempster
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 9:01 PM
Subject: Re: Monday morning photo.

Rick, ostensibly storage I suppose but none of them turned a wheel after
they were stored. I never saw one in steam and my first trip to NSW was
Easter 1962............ I just consulted Leon Oberg's book and he has the
last run as March 1962, 5711, Junee to Goulburn. Some of my contempories
were on the engine for that last trip. I must have just missed out. The H
went about '54 and the Xs and Cs might have just made the '60s. Remember
though, the NSWGR were running their Mails and Airconditioned Day Trains
with steam pretty late. The Flyers lasted until the late '60s whereas the VR
couldn't wait to get our mostly day trains dieselised, there were only a few
exceptions. I thought I should have called the 57 shot Locosaurus Rex.

I have been thinking about steam locomotion, mankind's first self propelled
vehicle, the technology is so primitive even at it's most developed it's
stll the same principle, light a fire under some water. Watt and Trevithick
and Stephenson wouldn't be baffled by it Did you see the Rocket replica
when it was here? What a knockout that was. No longer quaint or a
curiousity, I could see it as the working and revolutionary machine that
it was in 1825 or thereabouts. Although the blokes operating it obviously
knew what they were doing I got a sense of how tentative and uncertain it
must have been way back then but, as well, the relief and elation for
someone like Stephenson when his first steam contraption hissed and huffed
and crept along it's iron rails.

Attached, another of Australia's big engines.

Regards,

Peter Bruce.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Rick Dempster" <rick.dempster@rmit.edu.au>
To: "eter Bruce" <pbruce1@optusnet.com.au>
Sent: Wednesday, June 13, 2007 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: Monday morning photo.


> Storage or scrapline? These things were about done by the early to
> mid-sixties I think. A bit like the X s in Victoria ( and the H) they
> seemed to fall victim to the diesel before anything else, except perhaps
> the 'prestige' passenger services.
> Thanks mate,
> RD