North British and Baldwin beauties.

[marknewton]

Victorian Railways R class 4-6-4 R766 and New South Wales Government Railways 59 class 2-8-2 5917 pass Menangle Park platform today on their way to an overnight stay in Goulburn. Tomorrow they'll run from Goulburn to Canberra, where they'll spend the summer break for maintenance.
 

The significance of this trip is that the R was built as a broad gauge - 5'3" or 1600mm - loco. The Rs were designed to be convertible to standard gauge, but it was never carried out during their service with VR. The preservation group that now owns the engine did the work over a number of years at their base in the Hunter Valley, but until last night the loco had never travelled over the Sydney Trains network into the city, as it's not accredited yet for our lines.

 

It came down late last night with another ex-VR loco, X class diesel X54, as a pilot engine to allow running on Sydney Trains track. But today's running was exclusively on track controlled by ARTC, so the R could run as the leading engine. It's still a little surreal to me, as it's something I never expected to see. It's a long trip from our home in Waterfall to Menangle Park, but it was worth it. I apologise for the rather intrusive pedestrian crossing alarm, but I wanted to be close to the action!

 

 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

 

 

[marknewton]

Last night's transfer run from Telarah to Chullora, seen at Concord West in the northern suburbs of Sydney. The leading unit is recently preserved Victorian Railways X class X54, now owned by East Coast Heritage Rail. It'll be returned to its original, very attractive VR livery in the months to come. That's my wife Paula and son Harry further up the platform, filming as well. It was a last minute decision to head out to see the train, but I'm glad we did. 
 

Cheers,

 

Mark.