Am I seeing things?

[The_Ghan]

My house backs onto the local railway reserve and I have the pleasure of being able to RailFan from my own balcony.  The trains are about 120m away and 20m below, so I still enjoy a good panoramic view of the local river, bushland and suburb.  I was on said verandah, glass of shiraz in hand, last Sunday afternoon around 3:15pm when a coal train (about 30 cars) rumbled past.  I usually don't pay much attention but today I did, for three reasons:

 

1. It was pulled by a triple header of what look like brand new CEY Class locos.  I haven't seen them before, except for photos.  These diesel-electrics are beautifully tuned, and I'm talking about the sound here.  The harmony was magic.  But most of the locos I see are 86 class electrics.  The nice thing about the 86'ers is their numbers are painted in 6' high lettering.  You can literally pick one out a mile away.  The CEY's numbers were too small for me to make out without my binoculars, which I didn't have time to grab, but the distinctive green elephant was hard to miss;

 

2.  Why is the CEY class painted so freakin' yellow.  I'm not kidding, the yellow is so damn yellow that it would make a canary blush!  Lord only knows why;

 

3.  Here's the really interesting thing - about this particular train, not the loco.  As the train rolled by I noticed a wider gap between two particular cars - wider by about 3'.  Yes, feet, not inches!  I couldn't see any coupling connection.  It appeared to have two big chains and a bundle of hydraulic/electrical cables about 2" in diameter.  This was about 8 or 9 cars from the rear.  As the train slowed the gap was maintained because the hydraulic brakes on those 8 or 9 cars must have been more effective than the whole train.  Have I missed something here?  As I said, I didn't have time to get the binoculars, but the gap between the two couplers was such that a man could have walked between without a squeeze at all.  Any thoughts on this one?  I've never seen anything like it.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[westfalen]

Were the hoppers connected by a drawbar? Pity you didn't have a camera at the ready but as you say you don't pay much attention to things that you see every day.

 

BTW I thought the 86 class were withdrawn and cut up several years ago when PN took over from Freight Corp.

[The_Ghan]

Hey West,

 

Yes, there could have been drawbars.  Is that common?  Why use them?

 

From my elevation above the railway drawbars would be roughly in line with the far rail anyway, so I might have missed them.  Binoculars are at the ready for the next time I'm hanging around when one passes through.

 

Apart from the colours I like the look of the CEY ... and the sound.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[marknewton]

Nige, you need to get those binoculars out - and maybe have your eyes tested!   :grin

 

There's no 86 class electric locos left in service, all but two of them were scrapped years ago. The two survivors aren't currently operable. What you've been seeing are either 81 or 82 class diesel locos. Or even the occasional 80 class Alco...

 

 

I don't know why the Centennial Coal CEY class locos are painted in such an awful shade of yellow. But I do know a bit about their hopper wagons.

 

The PHTH type hoppers are permanently coupled in two-car blocks with a fixed drawbar between the inner ends, and only have a knuckle coupler on the outer ends. They do have a larger-than-normal gap between the inner ends, I'm not really sure why this is. Possibly to reduce the weight-per-foot-run?

 

What you described as "cabling" is the various air and electrical connections between the wagons for the Electronically Controlled Pneumatic brake system. There's a brake pipe hose, a main reservoir hose, and the ECP jumper cables, all of which are duplicated, so you have a total of six connections. There are no hydraulic brake systems on these, or indeed any rollingstock running in NSW. Hydraulic brakes would not fail safe, so they've never been used here.

 

 

http://extranet.artc.com.au/docman/DocManFiles/DocTypes/TOC/Files/11227.PDF?45466885

 

The funny thing is, while I'm writing this reply there's a Centennial Coal train heading past my house!

 

All the best,

 

Mark.

[westfalen]

Nige, you need to get those binoculars out - and maybe have your eyes tested!   :grin

Try looking through the other end of the binoculars.

 

QR also has a lot of drawbar coupled hoppers. I think another reason for their use is that it reduces maintainence and inspection of the couplers.

[keitaro]

My brother lives 200 m from the metford station in newcastle. pretty sure i never saw a single one with a draw bar? or maybe i have never looked well enough to notice

 

btw if you like freight thats the area to go 1 every 15 minutes all day pretty much  

[marknewton]

Yeah, Metford is a good train watching spot alright. But you haven't been looking closely enough at what goes past you there, as most of the hopper wagons running in Hunter Valley service are drawbar-coupled. 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

[The_Ghan]

I'm not really a freight fan.  I don't have any freight models, so that says something.  I guess that's why I haven't been paying attention.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[keitaro]

Yeah, Metford is a good train watching spot alright. But you haven't been looking closely enough at what goes past you there, as most of the hopper wagons running in Hunter Valley service are drawbar-coupled. 

 

Cheers,

 

Mark.

 

 

 

really hmm i only paid attention to the locos to be honest.

 

the over pass is really great and i love it when they're stopped at the lights just a the station for a good 10 mins at times good oportunity to get some really great snaps.

 

If only they had some jap stock....

[keitaro]

i can't find the snaps i took a while back must be on one of the 10 externals i have but i dug these up took em when my son was riding his bike there so they're not really focusing on the trains.

 

done on 70 - 200 mkII 2.8L

 

 

if i can be bothered i will check hdds one day. or i am going up there in a few weeks and will definately have a chance to snap these draw bars.

[The_Ghan]

Thanks for the photos keitaro,

 

Looks like pretty even spacing between those hoppers.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan