Fw: Monday Morning Photo. 26/01/09.

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Sent: Sunday, January 25, 2009 9:48 PM

Subject: Monday Morning Photo. 26/01/09.

 I've had the attached photo of Ballarat C Box for ages and I've no recollection of how I came by it except that it was in the family.

I didn't attach any particular importance to it other than as a record of the early 20th century on the Victorian Railways.

But.....not so long ago I found out that my paternal Grandma's younger brother, Bill Howard, met eternity right here, at Ballarat C Box on or about May 9th, 1915.

He was hit and run down by a locomotive and died shortly afterward in hospital. His brother-in-law quoted him as saying,

" I was a fool to go for the staff, I completely forgot about the other train".

Presumably he was the signalman on duty.

So maybe he is the sportin' looking chap posing on the steps of C Box.

Maybe.

It is obviously a professional photo, it is mounted on card and is quite badly damaged. I've had a bit of a go at tidying it up but my skills are very limited.

Monday Morning Photo. 12/1/09.

G'day all, after I posted the Belgrave etc. photos recently Ted Godwin reminded me that the re- opening of the line to Menzies Creek just preceded the closure of the other surviving narrow gauge line from Colac to Weeaproinah.

So here a some pictures taken during the last days of the latter.

The passenger train wasn't the last, I missed that, probably through lack of funds. I recall that there was a trip with 14A.... after this one I think. Maybe someone can confirm that and maybe even post a photo or two!

I rode the weekly goods only once and the photo was taken at Gellibrand on the return. This train left Colac very early on the trip out to Beech Forest so one needed to catch the previous evening's Port Fairy train from Melbourne. Naturally I missed it.

Fortunately I was able to board a later Geelong train and take a chance on a goods train to get me to Colac.

Being 18 by this time I could personally indemnify the Victorian Railways Commissioners against any injury I might sustain while being bounced around the old Z van as the coupler slack ran in and out of a long string of four wheel wagons.

I got to Colac in plenty of time to have a bit of a snooze and a shunter woke me up for an in the dark departure to Beech Forest. Melway 627 A8&9.

The guard wasn't the friendliest but I had the company of Peter Barry..... though he spent most of the time communing with the Grades Book. See Mark Bau's invaluable Victorian Railways site.

It was one of those days I wouldn't have missed for quids.**

Best regards,

Peter Bruce.

** Australian idiom...quids, large amounts of money. A quid was a pound in pre decimal currency

Back numbers of Monday Morning Photo at http://teenagerailfan.blogspot.com

Monday Morning Photo. 6/1/09.

G'day all, no real excuse for this late posting unless utter indolence can be considered an excuse.

I met very many of my contemporaries working as volunteers on this little railway. It may have been a little railway but it was an enormous task for volunteers to take on.

The details are a little dim at this distance but I know I was working there for some time before the line opened to the public in 1962 and I was a relative latecomer.

The two panoramic shots are taken from up above the landslide which caused the closure of the line in the first place and I think the other may have been taken before the public opening. It is at Menzies Creek which was the original railhead of the re-opened line. These days it goes well beyond there to the original terminus at Gembrook.

Up until this time I hadn't been out of Victoria but the tales of fellow workers here of what lay beyond our borders whetted my appetite and during 1962 I made my first interstate trips.

For this encouragement I owe thanks to many of the members of this group and others too, Chris Rodakis, Westy and T.A.Murray to name just a few.

Best regards,

Peter Bruce.

P.S. Back numbers of the Monday Morning Photo can be found at http://teenagerailfan.blogspot.com

Monday Morning Photo. 30/12/08.

Yeah I know it's Tuesday but I've been out of action on account of I
got a new computer and I forgot to import my mailing lists and I was
very busy with work etc.etc.....

So the last posting was early December and I speculated about my
memory and it's reliability and what might have drawn me to trains and
railways at such an early age.

Seeing as I think my first recollection is of the narrow gauge line in
the Dandenongs which has always been known as the Puffing Billy line I
thought a few photos taken around the time of re-opening in 1962 might
be apt.

I may have posted the early morning shot before, I think that it was
the first time that an engine was steamed at Belgrave, maybe the
night/day that 6A was delivered but perhaps one of you out there with
a more reliable brain can confirm or correct. I know I met a lot of
our present list members up on the "Narra" in those days 40+ years ago
so some of you would have been right on the spot.

The other shot is obviously in the very early days of regular service,
I particularly like the detail, it does show why the railway was
revived and why it has been such a success story, big kids playing
trains and little'uns and their mums and dads loving the ride through
the hills.

These days it is a very professional undertaking and still a labour of
love for many people. For those of you unfamiliar with it Google and
Google Earth are your friends.

In the next few days I'll post some more photos as I attempt to
restore my ragged credibility.

Best wishes to all for the coming year,

Peter Bruce.

Monday Morning photo. 1/12/08.

G'day all, in February 2009 I will be 65 years old, I may qualify as a baby-boomer.....but more likely a war baby.

Doesn't matter, what I am is a child of the Steam Age.

When I came into the world in 1944 Mr.and Mrs Australia and nearly all their worldly needs, on land and sea, depended on the power of steam....fire and water.

Still, that's not enough to explain my fascination with the steam locomotive and the steel rail, most people my age have not the slightest interest.......ah well, their loss I suppose.

My earliest memory points to my lifelong interest.

Upwey, Victoria, was on the 2' 6" railway between Upper Ferntree Gully and Gembrook and my mother and I were staying in a guesthouse there probably sometime before my dad was demobbed from the R.A.N, certainly before any of my siblings came along. Say 1946, early-ish, so I'm two and a bit.

Anyway I recall being woken by my mum, a bit like " maybe I should let him sleep....but no, he'd love to see the train", so I was picked up and taken to the window in time to see the little train pass and I heard that banshee shriek of the whistle for the first time.

Maybe my memory is not to be relied upon, maybe I've got the details wrong, I don't know and I don't really care.....this scene has been with me since childhood.

So maybe it explains something.

The attached photo is as close as I can get to what I think I saw all those years ago.

Best regards,

Peter Bruce.

P.S. I'd be very interested in any contributions or any speculation on this subject. Any personal experiences too, I'm certainly going to give it more thought.

Monday Morning Photo. Wednesday morning, 26/11/08.

G'day all, I've been reading through the Queensland Railways timetable for long distance and country lines* issued on 1st September 1964 and it has brought back to me how the various State Railways in Australia handled the whole transport task. Reading this it is almost as if air and road transport were still somewhere in the future. The timetables themselves are fascinating enough but the intricate parcels rate scales not to mention the Rules and Regulations really take one back to another time. A time before 1900 very often when the railway was the only way.

The photos attached which were taken at Mount Morgan give some idea of railway life in the Central Queensland hinterland in the early 1960s. Everthing moved at a pretty leisurely pace much as it had done for decades and my guess is that the QR at Mount Morgan might have employed maybe 40 or 50 people if there were engine crews based there..... and it was only 25 miles from Rockhampton.

A change is coming though, 1400 class GM diesels are hauling coal up from the coalfields south of here, some of it even in bogie steel hoppers.

All this is gone and the Queensland Railways and their coal haulage are big time now.

I'll have to get up there sometime soon and have a look for myself.

It was hot, overcast and very humid and the flat light made for flat looking pictures but I suppose that's better than no pictures.

Regards,

Peter Bruce.

* Price. 1/-.

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.