Heritage Train exhibition in Sydney, Australia this weekend

[marknewton]

An exhibition of heritage trains and buses at Sydney Terminal station has become a regular feature of the June long weekend, so my tribe and I made the trip into town this morning to have a look around. There were two steam-hauled trains running shuttles between town and Clyde, a static display of locos and cars at Sydney Terminal and Mortuary stations, and vintage buses running trips around the city.

 

My son Harry invited one of his schoolmates to come with us. Liam had never ridden behind a steam loco or on a double-deck bus before today, so he had a great time. And so did we. Events like this are a great way to catch up with old mates who are involved in some aspect of train or bus preservation, and today was no exception. So here's some photos of the day:

 

 

Harry and Liam with Alco World series loco 4490. Notice Harry has his Alco T-shirt on!

 

 

Inside a Southern Aurora lounge car - which my wife Paula and I helped restore some years ago when it was in the care of 3801 Ltd.

 

 

With the preserved single-deck suburban EMU set F1. When I first took up as a guard many years ago these are the type of trains I used to work. I'd forgotten just how basic they were! 

 

 

On the footplate of preserved steam loco 2705. Liam was a little wary of the open firedoor, but he was still keen to get up on the engine and have a look around.

 

 

With 2705 on the platform at Mortuary station. The engine and one Pullman car were decorated to represent a WW1-era troop train.

 

 

With some of the vintage buses that were running trips around the city. The red & cream bus is a pre-WW2 Sydney Leyland, the green & cream bus is a post-WW2 Sydney Leyland and the red bus between them is an ex-London Transport Routemaster that was being driven by our friend Dean.

 

The weather was good, the trains and buses all ran well, and we all had a great day out. Tomorrow Harry and I are going to the Epping Model Railway Club's annual exhibition at Thornleigh. I love being on annual leave! :)

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[miyakoji]

Fortunately someone had the good sense to rename Mortuary Station to Regent Street Station :).  I was just reading something about funeral trolleys in Philadelphia, I think they were active 100 years ago or so.

 

I don't think I'd ever noticed before that some Australian rolling stock has both a knuckle coupler and buffers.

[marknewton]

Yes, it has been known by that name, but I'll always think of the place as Mortuary. IIRC the last funeral trains ran from around the time of WW2. It eventually became part of Sydney Parcels, which was a separate entity to the station, and for many years the electric parcel van service that served the Sydney metropolitan area operated out of Regent Street, right up until the TrackFast era when the operation was relocated to Chullora. As a newbie Traffic Officer I was rostered to work there on many occasions - which was always interesting.

 

Knuckle couplers used in conjunction with hook drawgear and buffers were common on Queensland, NSW, Victoria and South Australian railways. There were two reasons for this. One was that the changeover from hooks to knuckle couplers on freight rollingstock was a slow and drawn-out procedure. When I was learning to shunt in 1976 there were still many older NSWGR freight cars that only had hook drawgear, and they were never converted to knuckles before being withdrawn in the early 1980s. The second was that there were many passenger cars that likewise only ever had hook drawgear. Even today there are preserved wooden cars that are running with hooks and buffers.

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[bikkuri bahn]

Fortunately someone had the good sense to rename Mortuary Station to Regent Street Station :)

 

Similar story here in Sapporo.  On the Namboku Line subway, one station was named "Reienmae"(霊園前) or "Cemetery Front".  The name was changed in 1994 to Minami Hiragishi- probably raised real estate prices as a result.

Edited June 8, 2015 by bikkuri bahn

[katoftw]

Wow at those old buses.  What great condition they are in.