RAIL TALES Thread, tell your rail stories here

[drivesafe]

Two of the best memories is flying directly over the tender of the loco and watch the boiler doors open and shut and seeing the red glow of the fire.
The other was catching a steam loco going though the tunnels between Kiama and Gerringong and looking at it in the air out to sea with the train, tunnels cuttings , rock shelfs and cliffs as the setting.
Ron

Ron, have you ever managed to have a video camera with you while flying above the trains along the South Coast?

Something I have always wanted to see was an aerial view of trains running around either Bethungra loop and/or Boarder Loop.

[jx2mad]

Hey Ron. I was driving south and had just reached the top of the Kiama bends when this gyrocopter came screaming up almost vertically from the south and frightened the ++++ out of me as it was so low and close to the road. Could that possibly have been you scaring drivers? This was a few years back now. Jim

[101 Ron]

Ron, have you ever managed to have a video camera with you while flying above the trains along the South Coast?

Something I have always wanted to see was an aerial view of trains running around either Bethungra loop and/or Boarder Loop.

I have not been actively flying for 12 years now.
It would be very easy to do now with Gro Pro type cameras on gimbles.
Most of my footage is on Video and not of trains but of spins and 90 degree banking ect which is more in line of a flying nut type person would do.
Gyro copters are not the best platform for cameras due to rotor viberations.

[101 Ron]

Hey Ron. I was driving south and had just reached the top of the Kiama bends when this gyrocopter came screaming up almost vertically from the south and frightened the ++++ out of me as it was so low and close to the road. Could that possibly have been you scaring drivers? This was a few years back now. Jim

I never went out of my way to scare drivers ( Only people I know) as it only takes a complaint and my rego number and the feds would be at the door.
It was in my back yard and I did have a reputation for being a wild at times but most likely not me.
Below me flying near jaspers brush getting the machine flying into a irrigation ditch with just the rotors sticking out the top....good fun until I found a bit of barbed wire cross a ditch.

[101 Ron]

To keep things on track.........
A friend of the family purchased a villers powered rail inspection quad.
We had to christen it.
After a little bit of research he found out the rails were still in place on the Goulburn to Crookwell line...so a weekend end was organised.
The line was put out of use in the late 1980s.
The little Villers quad worked a treat with about six people hanging off it in different places.
The successful weekend would lead to many others and my father purchasing this villers quad below.



It was fun playing trains and exploring old disused rail lines.
One weekend on the Captains flat line was interesting as it was in a bad way and the farmers had a bad habit of taking the rail line to make fence posts leading to the quad going bush a few times.
Another weekend was on the disused Grenfell line not far out of town.
Farmers have a bad habit of taking over the railway right of way and fencing it in which makes for interesting travelling on a open top quad.
It was a good set up.
Camp beside the line and take the quads into town.......the cars will still stop on the level crossings if they see the quad coming,
pull up at the disused railway station platform and walk across the road to the pub for dinner.
Return home much, much later at night with the glow of the 6 volt head light........the quad just finds its way home.....no need to steer and roll into bed.
The quads are interesting to operate as only one wheel is driven and power must be put down very slowly especially on a wet rail.
They will do a very good turn of speed, but the tracks limit this very much.
The chassis is made from wood as is the wheel centres.
They can be very dangerous if you have any speed on and the thing derails due to old track or dirt over the track.
They do not have the weight to push a rock or stick off the track without derailing.
Extendable wooden handles either end allow easy placement on the track and changing direction.
I don't have any really good pics of the quad adventures, but I found a interesting site.
with better pics of what I am talking about quad wise.
http://nswgrtrikes.4t.com/villiers/index.htm
Ron

[drivesafe]

There was a Trike or similar type group in Queensland some years back.

The manager of the Railway Shop, when it was located at South Brisbane station, was a member but I have no heard anything about it recently.

Anybody know anything about this group?

[wrinklearthur]

1940's film showing mostly the harvesting of timber for the Boyer News Print Mill, has some good shots of the Styx River Railway and the locomotive.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature...&v=SW4kcuUvsJk

The train to get safely down hill from the loading area down to Karanja, had to apply brakes the full distance and the workers would ride the cars applying the brakes on the way down.
.

[Bigbjorn]

When I worked at Tutts Machinery Group, they were distributors of Fairmont railway equipment. The two stroke rail cars were assembled in the dozer workshop at Salisbury and as this shop had a steel tiled floor, the cars were started and run backwards and forwards on the shop floor.

[wrinklearthur]

I was looking for Salt Bush Bill of all things and found this picture.


.

[scanfor]

That would be the Clarence River ferry at Grafton, in the days before the bridge.