RAIL TALES Thread, tell your rail stories here

[PhilipA]

I guess nothing like your stories but mine was a Yangon to Mandalay and return trip I did in about 1989.
I was Trade Commissioner in Bangkok and responsible for Myanmah so had to visit Mandalay to see what was happening.
My wife was Community Liaison officer in Bangkok and also responsible for Embassy staff in Yangon.


We travelled by train as Air Myanmah had lost 4 Fokker Fellowships in the previous year and one had gone down with an Embassy staff family killed.
In Myanmah they had at that time Alsthom diesels given by France but quite old rolling stock , with still lots of 4 wheel freight carriages.


They had one sleeper which they assigned to me and wife. It was a 4 berth cabin and 2 secret police took the other berths and stared at us all night.
They had no ballast machines in Myanmah at that time and all ballast was made by prisoners with sledge hammers, so they were always short , and the tracks were in terrible condition, so the train usually travelled at about 20MPH.
More on this later, but the country was so poor that people used to steal the grease from the wheel boxes of the carriages, and there were no signals outside Yangon as all the copper wire was stolen. The carriages also had old style couplings with just a big pin through double flanges on each carriage.




On our trip North a Samosa seller had died as he ran along the top of the train as he missed seeing but not hitting a low bridge. They were a sight to see as they jumped off the accelerating train down the embankment holding a Samosa tray aloft while running through all the washing on the embankment.


We got to Mandalay in the regulation 12 hours and I did my visits and we got the train back to Yangon 2 days later.


About half way there the train started to go slower and slower and we pulled into a siding. It turned out the bearing boxes of one carriage were dry and the axle seized, so the rail staff had to disengage the carriage.


They pounded away for several hours with a sledge before the coupling parted.


So away we went again. We arrived in the station near Pagan at about 4 oclock in the morning and the station was jumping with samosa sellers and tea vendors on the platform.


Over the PA was playing loudly " I feel a Bad Moon arising" from American Werewolf in London at about 105Db.


Whenever I hear that song I think of the oddest train journey I have ever had.
Regards Philip A

[JDNSW]

I made a numbr of trips to Myanmar in that time frame, although I never travelled by train.

John

[Fatso]

Hi Fatso, I had a sort of similar situation, but my driver was nothing like Bulldog.

It was either my third or fourth job as an Acting Fireman.

I signed on at 6 AM at Darling Harbour yard and waited for the driver to sign on.

He too was permanently rostered to Darling Harbour, but I’m not sure it was for light duties.

About 6.30 the head shunter comes in and tells me we have some work to do.

I tell him the driver hasn’t turned up yet.

He tells me the driver has been there all night, in locker room, drunk as a skunk and leg less.

The shunter tells me I’ll be doing the driving and I inform him I’m fresh out of the acting fireman’s school and have no idea how to drive a steam engine.

He just tells me not to worry, he would teach me and by the end of the shift, he had. ( if you don’t count a number of miss shunts ).

It was a 19 class and somewhere I still have a photo of it, and the “driver”, on a sober day.

It was a very different job back then!

I got caught out at darling harbour , when rostered there on paydays we used to take turns to jump a train and shute over to enfield to collect our pay ( In cash in those days ) , my driver went over and got his and I then jumped on a Glenlea coal train with a garret on the front , as my driver was shunting back and forwards past the garret he was waiving at me to come back to the shunt loco , I could not work out what the problem was until the third bloke on the garret said that I had better do what my driver was asking !!!, on arriving back on my loco ****ed off that I was not going to get my pay he informed me the third bloke on the garrett was an inspector doing a pass out for the fireman , Uh Oh, nothing was ever said and no bungs ever appeared . needless to say I learnt my lesson .

[drivesafe]

nothing was ever said and no bungs ever appeared.

Hi again Fatso, yep as I posted, it was a different job back then!

My best mate has just retired 6 weeks ago, after 40 years on the job as an electrician, working on electric trains in Sydney.

He was so disgusted with the way things now are, he told me he would not miss a thing about the job.

As you posted, you got away with your discretion, and back then, everybody covered everybody else’s back.

Today, if you know another employee is doing something wrong, and you don’t report it, and it’s found out that you knew, you get in just as much trouble as the person who was doing wrong gets.

What a great way to build company loyalty???

And it’s no wonder with half the big wigs being ex Quantas bosses.

I only ever had one run-in with a big wig and that was when I was a driver in Elec Train Running ( ETR ).

My home depot was Mortdale but I often did Foreign jobs at other depots.

I was doing an early morning Campbelltown job and the last section of the shift was to prep and work an early morning peak period express run from Campbelltown to Central.

After leaving Lidcome, my next stop was Strathfield, but as I approached Flemington Car sheds, I could see two drivers waiting at the “Rose Garden”.

This is a regular set down and pickup point for staff at Flemington car sheds.

I pulled up and picked up the two drivers and then proceeded to Strathfield.

One of the drivers asked me was the Run Such n such, which it was.

He asks “Aren't you a Campbelltown driver”, and when I told him I wasn’t, he tells me “Oh stuff it, you never stop at the Rose Gardens on this run, because the Deputy Commissioner catches this train to work, and he hates drivers stopping at the Rose Gardens. You can expect to get a wrap over the knuckles for stopping”

The two drivers go off at Stathfield and I drove on to Central.

This run terminates at Central on the Country and Interstate platforms.

As I pulled up at the end of the platform, there are two Loco Inspectors waiting for me.

One I knew, but not the other and this guy howls into me.

“You have been a driver long enough to know how dangerous it is to stop at places like the Rose Gardens.”

He gave me heaps and this was REALLY unusual for Loco inspector on the ETR to talk to drivers like that.

He went on like this for a few minutes when the other inspector interrupts.

“He just went down the escalators”

With that the first inspector tells me to forget what he had being saying and that I would not hear another thing about it, but he had to put on an act for the “Bars##d, just remember not to stop there if you do this run again.

What got me was, this was before mobile phones, so I have no idea how the creep managed to have the inspectors waiting for me, when the train got to Central?

[d2dave]

A great experience I had back in 2010. We went to Tassie for our 25th anniversary. We booked a trip from Straun in a six wheel drive six door Defender that had a glass roof and was fitted with railway wheels.

One week before we were due to leave we got a phone call telling us that the vehicle had broken down and that they had to cancel our trip.

For compensation they offered us the train trip in first class and upped our level of accommodation at Straun.

We were not disappointed as the train trip was fantastic, as was our accommodation.

Parts of this rail line was in such steep terrain the only way they could get a train up was to put ratchet system in the middle of the tracks as shown below.



The next pic shows the track at the top of the climb. In the back ground you can see the track just disappear.







This was a train trip that was very enjoyable and would love to do it again.

[Fatso]

Drive safe , The reason bulldog was called bulldog was that he fell off a moving loco near seven hills I believe into a creek , on the way down he got his face mangled which left him with a bulldog sort of a look bit like John Gorton . He was a bit of a legend in the 60,s , nice old bloke .


Where were the coal trains trains dumped ?? White Bay or Darling Harbour I think I get them mixed up . Al

[drivesafe]

Hi Fatso, and Coal trains went to White Bay.

What I meant was Bulldog was a driver you didn’t mind working with, whereas my driver at Daring Harbour was a driver I could happily never worked with.

But then again, back then, drunks on the job were still commonplace.

[d2dave]

Seeing a few enjoyed my pics I have done some more.

[d2dave]

This thread prompted me to have a look at the trains history. It saddens me to find out that it has only recently closed, with parts recently reopened and work trying to do the rest.

It was only reopened in 2002 after federal funds of over 20 mil were kicked in.
(sounds a bit like Holden and Ford)

It was 2010 when we did it. I really hope this reopens as I do want to do it again.

Have a read.
West Coast Wilderness Railway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[drivesafe]

Hi Dave and thanks and if you have more pictures, don't stop now.

This is why I started this thread, for railway stories of ANY kind.