G'day all, I'm not 100% sure exactly when I got the attached shot, it was either late in the winter of 1962 or late-ish in January 1963 and I'm also not at all sure that the leading loco is T226 but at this remove it doesn't really matter much. Either way I hadn't reached my 19th birthday and I was camping in the Waiting Room at the Peterborough station and there was no place I would rather have been.
Going by this photo and also by my last posting I wasn't wasting the dark hours sleeping, there was just too much going on, the yard at Peterborough never slept and Train Control very obligingly announced trains as they reported at the station before and in daylight hours that gave me plenty of time to walk out beyond the yard limits for a photo.
Cliff Olds, who is a member of this mailing list, worked at Peterborough in steam days and he has pointed out that trains would arrive at Peterborough behind a Garratt at 900 tons and the train would then be built up to 1100 tons and depart doubleheaded by the Garratt assisted by a T class 4-8-0, a class much modified since its debut 60 years previously. The westbound train in the picture is one such, the Garratt will come off at Belalie North and the little T class 4-8-0 will work the load through to the lead smelters at Port Pirie.
The picture itself is pretty heavily cropped from a 6x6 negative and technically very ordinary, too bad, no apologies.....to me it is Peterborough and its night time sights, sounds and smells.
As I've said before, I don't yearn for the Good Old Days but I'm sure glad I saw them.
Best regards,
Peter Bruce.
See http://teenagerailfan.blogspot.com for postings back to 2008 and some repetition!
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