The original

The first locomotive numbered #6029 is a New South Wales AD60 class Beyer-Garratt 4-8-4+4-8-4 heavy goods steam locomotive, which entered service in 1954 and is now preserved by Transport Heritage NSW.

The young one

The next locomotive numbered #6029 is a UGL Rail C44aci diesel electric locomotive, operated by Aurizon on freight services across Australia since delivery in 2012.

And the ring in

And the electric version of #6029 is actually a tram – a Melbourne E-class which entered service in 2015.

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Arrival into Auckland

I flew into Auckland Airport on the North Island.

And immediately made my way to the Glenbrook Vintage Railway, where steam locomotive WW 644 was running for the day.

I also headed over to the nearby New Zealand Steel mill at Glenbrook, but unfortunately no trains were running there.

Luckily the Te Huia train was runing, complete with ex-Auckland driving carriage.

And closer to Auckland, there were freight trains aplenty at Westfield Yard.

I headed out to the Museum of Transport and Technology Auckland, and look at what I found on their line – a bloody Melbourne tram!

Driving down the North Island

I then started the drive south towards Wellington, finding the first of many of KiwiRail’s dinky little remote controlled shunting locomotives.

I continued south along the electrified North Island Main Trunk, but all I found were diesel locomotive hauled freight trains.

And the thrice-weekly ‘Northern Explorer‘ passenger train.

The 25 kV electrical substations sitting there doing little.

On the way I found a memorial to the 1923 Ongarue railway disaster.

An obelisk marking the driving of the last spike of the North Island Main Trunk railway in 1908

And a memorial for the 1953 Tangiwai railway disaster.

I also found a yard full of ex-Auckland suburban carriages at Taumarunui, abandoned since 2014.

But scrapping of them had started.

And an abandoned double deck bridge over the Ongarue River

Some much taller bridges included the historic steel Makohine Viaduct further south.

And the modern South Rangitikei Viaduct built of prestressed concrete.

A quick stop in Wellington

On arrival into Wellington what was I greeted by – but a rail replacement bus!

My first electric train sighting not being until the next morning.

Across the Cook Strait

Time to take my campervan onto the ferry.

We bid Wellington Harbour behind.

And arrived into Picton.

South Island adventures

I hoped to follow a freight train south from Picton, but fading light put paid to that idea.

But I did find another remote control shunter at work.

And a freight train headed into the opposite direction to me!

Meaning my trip towards Christchurch being scenic, but with no trains along the tracks.

Around Christchurch

I headed out of Christchurch for a day on the TranzAlpine train.

And spent the rest of my time on the hunt for freight trains.

Unfortunately my visit to the Ferrymead Railway didn’t coincide with a running day.

But the Weka Pass Railway an hour north had a diesel locomotive running trains for the public.

There I spotted a two-wire high voltage transmission line that screamed ‘HVDC’ to me – and it was.

Also in Christchurch I rode the gondola to the top of Mount Cavendish, despite the summit being covered in fog.

But I passed on paying $40 to ride the Christchurch tramway – another bloody Melbourne tram!

But one thing they had that I’ve never seen before is their indoor bus station – incoming services get allocated to a random stop, and passengers have to quickly run to the relevant doors to board their bus.

And heading back north

Turns out a Jetstar flight from Christchurch to Wellington was half the price of a combined bus and ferry journey, so onto a plane I went.

The trip into the city went via the single lane Hataitai bus tunnel.

In Wellington I checked out obvious tourist sights, like the Wellington Cable Car.

And gunzel things like the diesel hauled Wairarapa Line service.

The next day I spent on the Northern Explorer train towards Auckland, retracing the route I’d taken a week earlier.

And finished my journey in Auckland.

Catching the ferry over the harbour to Devonport, and catching a bus back.

And ending my trip with a bus ride to Auckland Airport for my flight home.

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Regional Rail Link

Progress on the Regional Rail Link project has been a theme in recent months, and this is the same – plenty of work at Footscray station, along with a clear view back to the Melbourne CBD.

With a major shutdown of the suburban lines coming up to install new bridges over the railway line between Footscray and Middle Footscray.

Excavators and dump trucks rolling in a few days later to widen the cutting.

And to demolish West Footscray station to make room for extra tracks.

The ‘West Footscray’ station signage being unceremoniously thrown into the bin of scrap metal, rather than sold off to collectors.

Trams

The Colonial Tramcar Restaurant was still running around Melbourne.

The service last ran in October 2018, when Yarra Trams banned the fleet of the network citing safety concerns.

As were the maroon liveried City Circle Trams.

2013 also saw the launch of Melbourne Art Trams – a revival of the Transporting Art project which ran from 1978 to 1993.

The brand new E class trams were finally running around the network, but still on test.

As were the upgraded ‘W8’ class trams for use on the City Circle – I found this one at the route 82 terminus at Footscray.

Clueless drivers

It takes some skill, but some motorist managed to impale their car onto the tram stop safety zone prow at Newmarket station.

But this motorist went one better, taking out the entire tram stop.

At last one service disruption Yarra Trams could not be blamed for was this one on Maribyrnong Road, Ascot Vale – strong winds tore the roof off an apartment block, which then landed on the tramway overhead, stopping trams.

New tram tracks

For a few days route 19, 57 and 59 terminated at a temporary crossover north of La Trobe Street.

So that the tram tracks along Elizabeth Street could be dug up.

And new tracks laid.

Ready for the constructor of long awaited platform tram stops.

And then work stopped – two weeks later, the trams stops were still not ready for use.

With work on the fencing being dragged out.

With the tram stops still unfinished at the end of the month.

Buses

On my lunch break I found a Melbourne Visitor Shuttle bus – a victim of competition from the Free Tram Zone, the City of Melbourne finally killed off the service in August 2017.

Transdev was also making their brand more visible in Melbourne, having taken over the operations of National Bus Company and Melbourne Bus Link the month before.

And the other bits

With the Spring Racing Carnival upon us, it’s time for more gambling advertising – this time it was bookmaker ‘Bet365’.

Out at Melbourne Airport the 1970s water tower was still in place outside the Terminal 4 construction site, but was soon gone, deconstructed piece by piece.

Also gone is Melbourne Bike Share – the service was wound up in November 2019.

On Ballarat Road in Footscray I found this still functioning neon sign at Douglas’s Service Station.

And something new for the time – my first sighting of a 1AA-1AA series registration plate, which had been launched in August 2013 along with the ‘Vic – Stay Alert Stay Alive’ slogan.

The new number sequence is estimated to be provide enough combinations to last for 50 years, but the slogan was dumped for ‘Victoria – The Education State’ in October 2015.

And a steam train

I made the trip out up north to Castlemaine on a Steamrail Victoria special.

The selling point being the side trip along the Victorian Goldfields Railway.

Where the train would stop in the middle of nowhere to let passengers exit.

Then line up in the forest.

To photograph the train passing us by.

Known as a ‘photo line’ it has been a traditional part of steam train excursions in Victoria since the 1960s, when esteemed tour organiser Eldon Hogan would bark directions to waiting photographers with his Hogaphone.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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John Henry Harvey photo, SLV image H92.150-302

And today.

West Richmond station opened on 21 October 1901, along with the line from Princes Bridge station to Collingwood. However this section of railway is a little different to much of the Melbourne network…

The track

The first railway in the area opened in 1888, linking Victoria Park (then named Collingwood) and Heidelberg on what is now the Hurstbridge line.

However the route towards the city was different to today – trains had to take the ‘Inner Circle‘ towards Royal Park, where the joined the Upfield line.

A year later in 1889 a second railway opened from Victoria Park, running north to Whittlesea along the route now taken by the Mernda line. In the years the followed the railway to Heidelberg was extended north – to Eltham in 1902 and Hurstbridge in 1912.

The locomotive

The steam locomotive in the photo is a Victorian Railways M class – a 4-4-0T tank locomotive designed for hauling suburban passenger services.

The first example was acquired in 1879 from Beyer, Peacock & Co, with a further 21 locomotives built by the Phoenix Foundry of Ballarat between 1884 to 1886. Their coal bunker capacity limited their usefulness, so they were rebuilt at the Newport Workshops as 4-4-2T locomotives between 1901 and 1905.

However electrification of the Melbourne suburban network commenced soon after, sounding the death knell for the M class locomotives, the last of which was scrapped in 1922.

And what came later

With steam locomotives gone, electrification triggered new growth – the wires were strung as far as Reservoir and Heidelberg electrified by 1921, and extended to Eltham in 1923 and Hurstbridge in 1926. Further extensions were completed to Thomastown in 1929, Lalor in 1959, Epping in 1964, South Morang in 2012, and finally Mernda in 2018.

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We start over at Flinders Street Station, where Hitachi trains were still in service with then-suburban train operator Connex Melbourne.

Connex was replaced by Metro Trains Melbourne in November 2009, but the Hitachi trains hung on until December 2013.

Nearby signal box Flinders Street ‘A’ was being rebuilt as part of the ‘Signal’ youth arts centre.

But around the corner was the abandoned trackbed of platform 11.

It has since been turned into the ‘Arbory’ bar, opened in 2015

We’ve been watching the construction at North Melbourne station for months now, and in May 2009 the temporary scaffolding was coming down, exposing the new concourse at the city end.

Down near Moonee Ponds Creek I photographed a V/Line train headed out of the station.

Since Regional Rail Link opened in 2014 these tracks are only used by suburban trains, with V/Line now using their own tracks that bypass North Melbourne station entirely.

Once upon a time passenger trains all over Victoria once carried parcels as well as passengers, but in 2009 the ‘Green Star’ parcel service still operated using V/Line trains.

The public parcel service was wound up in 2010, but V/Line still continues transporting blood products for the Australian Red Cross Blood Service as part of a separate agreement.

Another much heavier freight task is the movement of steel products from the BlueScope Steel plant at Hastings, to the Melbourne Steel Terminal next door to Docklands.

A decade on the trains still run, this freight terminal no longer exists – the site was cleared in 2015 to make way for the ‘E’ Gate development, only for Transurban to acquire it in 2016 as part of the West Gate ‘Tunnel’ city access ramps.

Around the corner at the South Dynon depot, I found a 114 tonne diesel locomotive being lifted by a crane.

B64 originally entered service in 1952 and was in service with V/Line for 40 years until retired in 1992. It then went through a succession of owners who intended to restore it to service, but to naught – it’s currently dumped out the back of the railway workshops in Bendigo.

Another similarly aged locomotive is steam engine R761.

It also entered service in 1952, but was withdrawn far earlier in 1974, but retained for use on special trains, such as this run to Ballarat.

The steep climb out of Bacchus Marsh drew quite a crowd.

As did the spin on the turntable on arrival at Ballarat.

Along the way I stopped into the ghost town that was Rockbank station.

The station is currently being upgraded as part of the Regional Rail Revival project, but there is nothing ‘regional’ about Rockbank – the new station is intended to serve sprawling new suburbs of Melbourne.

While I was up in Ballarat, I stumbled upon for the former Joe White Maltings plant in Wendouree.

A complex series of conveyors and elevators once moved grain around the facility.

But by the time I visited the plant had closed, bulk of the site having been demolished in 2006, leaving just the silos.

The site then lay empty, with the silos demolished in late-2010 after plans to convert them into apartments fell through.

We end down in Geelong, where I picked up a “Short Term Ticket”.

They were a cardboard single use smartcard ticket, sold on buses in Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong following the introduction of Myki in 2009.

The rollout of short term tickets was cancelled by the Baillieu government in June 2011, acting on advice contained in a secret report by consultants Deloitte. Supposedly the continued rollout was cancelled because the cards cost $0.40 cents to manufacture – making up almost half of the $0.90 charged for a concession bus fare in Geelong!

Despite the objections of locals, the sale of two hour and daily short-term tickets ended in Geelong on Friday 19 April 2013.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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We start down in Geelong, where construction of the Geelong Ring Road was now moving up the Barrabool Hills towards Ceres.

I also found a late running freight train bound for Warrnambool. Due to the lack of passing locations on the single track railway, the train had to wait at North Geelong until the train in front had made it to Camperdown – 120 kilometres away!

Thankfully today such delays aren’t as frequent – a new crossing loop opened in 2014 at Warncoort, a mere 68 kilometres from Geelong, giving trains on the Warrnambool line another place to pass each other. However the line south from Geelong is still single track, limiting the number of V/Line trains that can serve the growing station of Waurn Ponds.

Something new and shiny was the first of the newly imported ‘Bumblebee’ trams, which I spotted on a test run along on La Trobe Street, before entering revenue service.

Originally built for the tram network in Mulhouse, France but surplus to their requirements, five of these were leased by Yarra Trams in 2008 as part of a a desperate attempt to cater for growing tram patronage in Melbourne. Originally leased for four years, they were purchaeed by the government in 2012/13, and lost their bright yellow colour scheme in 2014.

Another more successful attempt at addressing growing public transport patronage was the introduction of the first three-car VLocity trains.

Originally delivered as 2-car long sets, the introduction of 3-car sets allowed the creation of trains of any length from two cars up to seven cars – something once used on services to Geelong, until the final VLocity set was expanded from 2 to 3-cars in June 2016.

But the biggest change can be found at Footscray station.

The massive ‘colander’ footbridge was nowhere to be seen.

The footbridge was out in the open.

With passengers using steep and rickety timber ramps to change platforms.

Shops lined the south side of Irving Street.

And the route 82 tram terminus was just a fence beside the tracks, with pedestrians having to fight their way past traffic to get there.

The scene today is far different – the shops are all gone, with the station footbridge replaced in 2009/10 by a modern structure with lifts and stairs, which was then rebuilt in 2012/13 when Footscray was expanded to six platforms as part of the Regional Rail Link project.

Back in 2008 level crossings were still in the news, thanks to the Kerang train crash a year earlier, that saw a truck plough into the side of a V/Line train and kill 11 passengers.

As a result rumble strips were rolled out at level crossings across country Victoria.

Giving drivers advance warning.

Of the upcoming crossing.

A decade later unprotected level crossings in country Victoria are still a common sight, despite an ongoing program of rail crossing upgrades by VicTrack.

June 2008 also saw the last steam train run to Albury, before the line was closed for conversion to standard gauge.

The crowds were out in force at every station stop, like here at Benalla.

I followed the train north by road with a group of friends.

But a northbound freight train was also giving chase.

It arrived over the border late in the day, with steam locomotives R761 heading over to the turntable at Wodonga to be prepared for the trip back south.

Taking on plenty of coal and water to fuel the trip.

With the return trip in the dark.

But the train never made it back to Melbourne – it came to a halt outside Seymour, eventually crawling into the station at 2 am.

By this point unable to proceed due to the signallers further along the line already having gone home for the night, so the tired passengers were loaded onto buses, while the steam engines were stabled at the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre depot to try again another day.

Between 2008 and 2011, all V/Line services to Albury were operated as road coaches north of Seymour, with the first service on the standard gauge line running on 26 June 2011.

But unfortunately for passengers, the dramas are yet to end – V/Line services along the line are chronically late, with the Australian Transport Safety Bureau asked to investigate the status of the track, and track manager Australian Rail Track Corporation forced to complete remediation work.

Footnote

Here you can find the rest of my ‘photos from ten years ago‘ series.

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For those playing at home, the venue was the Footscray Community Arts Centre – the disused Maribyrnong River goods line can be found in the background, as can the mainline railway that links Melbourne to Sydney and Adelaide.

Still on the subject of weddings

Back in August 2013 I attended a wedding held onboard a train – given the bride and groom met through the railway preservation movement, it was the perfect setting for the couple.

Held on the Victorian Goldfields Railway that runs between Castlemaine and Maldon, century-old steam locomotive D3 639 lead the train carrying the wedding party and guests.

Coincidentally this isn’t the first time D3 639 has been part of a bridal party – on 18 November 1967 it led a train from Thornbury to Spencer Street Station for the wedding of another railway enthusiast: Weston Langford.

Fifty years on, the Southern Aurora is no longer an option for the honeymooners to head to Sydney, but hopefully the model of locomotive B74 in cake form made up for it.

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