Thread: Alco 48 class loco pics

Classic photos sir!,really wish I had a time machine,Ive also been told stories of locos towing out stuck vehicles from older guys Iwork with,OH&S would frown on it today!!!,I think you saw the best years as far as good times go!
Gregg

Originally Posted by 3-Gees

I think you saw the best years as far as good times go!

And good times they were.

Talk about a city slicker let loose in the boonies. On my first trip to Inverell, we were working an all night mixed goods from Moree.

Just after dawn, as we were dropping down the grade before Inverell, the driver seemed to be going a bit slow.

Next thing, the tail goes ( the guard opened the emergence brake valve ) and the train came to a stop.

The driver didn’t seem too worried, but after a few minutes I asked the driver what was going on.

He told me to check my mirror.

There on the side of the cutting was the guard, picking mushrooms.

We had a great breakfast once we got to Inverell.

On other occasions, we use to take 22s with us and did a bit of rabbit shooting.

OH, how times have changed.

Originally Posted by drivesafe

And good times they were.

Talk about a city slicker let loose in the boonies. On my first trip to Inverell, we were working an all night mixed goods from Moree.

Just after dawn, as we were dropping down the grade before Inverell, the driver seemed to be going a bit slow.

Next thing, the tail goes ( the guard opened the emergence brake valve ) and the train came to a stop.

The driver didn’t seem too worried, but after a few minutes I asked the driver what was going on.

He told me to check my mirror.

There on the side of the cutting was the guard, picking mushrooms.

We had a great breakfast once we got to Inverell.

On other occasions, we use to take 22s with us and did a bit of rabbit shooting.

OH, how times have changed.

My late neighbour(dec'd 1996) was 46 years in QR. Engine cleaner, fireman, driver, steam to heavy electrics and tilt train. As a young firie he was stationed at Blackall and spoke of the weekly (later fortnightly) service to Yaraka and return. The train was one loco and enough coal and water to do the return trip, no facilities at Yaraka, just a shed and a sign. Actually, not much else at Yaraka. A passenger carriage, a guards van, a camp wagon, tucker boxes, whatever goods wagons were necessary and any stock wagons that had been ordered by Yaraka or in between customers. He said they used to stop on the Barcoo bridges and fish off the train and offer hand lines to any passengers who wanted to have a go. They would also shoot ducks (or protected plains turkeys!) or the occasional "wild" sheep, and light a gidyea fire to grill a feed of duck and yellowbelly. He reckoned the passengers expected these activities and would likely complain if cut short.

What great yarns!,someone should write a book(they probably have) with all these stories from rail-workers back in the days before the fun police took over,but back then times and expectations were a bit different and safety was somethig you did intuitivly!.Heres hoping in ten years or so I can have a few good yarns to spin myself

Originally Posted by BMKal

We must have been almost neighbours back then. I lived at 3 York Rd in Bellambi during those years - and went to the convent school opposite the Rex Hotel in Thirroul (spelling ?). My father worked at Coal Cliff. Trains used to run along the back fence.

Before that, we lived in the big old white two storey mansion at Stanwell Park. The trains ran along the back fence of that place too.

Have only ever been back there once since for a look - and got well and truly lost.

Brian,it is a small world.I lived at Helensburgh for years and used to go to Standwell Park and watch the para gliders take off from the bluff.My misses lived at Balgownie when we met. Pat

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

My late neighbour(dec'd 1996) was 46 years in QR. Engine cleaner, fireman, driver, steam to heavy electrics and tilt train. As a young firie he was stationed at Blackall and spoke of the weekly (later fortnightly) service to Yaraka and return. The train was one loco and enough coal and water to do the return trip, no facilities at Yaraka, just a shed and a sign. Actually, not much else at Yaraka. A passenger carriage, a guards van, a camp wagon, tucker boxes, whatever goods wagons were necessary and any stock wagons that had been ordered by Yaraka or in between customers. He said they used to stop on the Barcoo bridges and fish off the train and offer hand lines to any passengers who wanted to have a go. They would also shoot ducks (or protected plains turkeys!) or the occasional "wild" sheep, and light a gidyea fire to grill a feed of duck and yellowbelly. He reckoned the passengers expected these activities and would likely complain if cut short.

That line to Yaraka was laid straight on the ground no ballast.I have a video of a sheep train going over it and the line was so buckled that crawling speed was necessary.Also the line from Jericho/Blackall had a gradient to climb.Normally no worries but with a bit of extra freight and a more then normal passenger load it sometimes did not make it.So out we all got and the driver would back up and have a few goes at it.We the passengers would wait at the top then climb aboard for the rest of the trip to Blackall.Many a time if we were on the road near the line the trains would stop and share a billy of tea with us.Timetables meant nothing in those days. Sadly now a bygone era.

Well it’s already rolling so why not keep the stories coming, and I’ll start.

I the old days, if you hit any live stock you had to fill in a “Stock Killed Report” ( don’t know if they still do ) and on one trip while I was working the mail train up to Armidale with one of the senior drivers.

At one spot we had a near miss when a cow took it’s time getting off the right-of-way.

This started us talking about “Stock Killed Reports” and the driver told me about an older since retired driver who liked to dress up his reports.

One occasion after hitting a cow, his report read “I noticed a cow running through a paddock, being pursued by a bull. As the locomotive approached the cow, the cow suddenly changed directions and ran under the locomotive. It is my opinion that rather then be molested by the bull, the cow chose the sacrifice itself.”

On another report, he simply put “I first saw the cow coming our of the grass, I then saw the grass coming out of the cow”

When I first arrived in Moree, just a couple of months before, they had had some massive floods go through the area. Prier to the floods, the line running west from Moree use to go to Mungindi. After the floods, the line was and is still truncated at Weemelah.

With the line shortened, the Rail Motor service was terminated, but on one of the last runs, on a line that has an average grade of 1:4000 and is not only dead flat but pretty straight, so there is plenty of long range clear viewing.

This was a day time only trip and a driver at Moree had to answer how, with such clear vision, he managed to run over 36 sheep in one go and not know.

While I have no idea what his official reply was, when one of the other drivers asked him how in hell he could miss seeing that many sheep, the driver replied “ How many sheep can you see through the Sun Herald”

A long time ago I had the local copper come to my door as he needed help,a steer had been hit by a train at Hedden Greta near Maintland and he wanted me to shoot it as he couldn't get close enough.After my only ever ride in a cop car I found it standing at the far end of a cutting and put it down with one Mk7 through the shoulders at almost 200mtrs.Much later on the same copper got me to destroy about a dozen head from an overturned truck on the highway. Pat