Waking up in Geelong

Back in October 2022 I took two weeks off work for a road trip up to New South Wales and back, and took so many photos I needed a whole other holiday to go through them all! Here are the results.

Heading up to Albury

I followed the Hume Highway up at Albury, and stopped in at Seymour, where I found the Travellers Aid ‘Connection Assistance’ service transporting passengers through the railway station underpass.

And saw the northbound Melbourne-Sydney train speed past me.

At Violet Town I visited the Southern Aurora Memorial Garden, which commemorates the crash of the Southern Aurora passenger train in February 1969.

Closer to Albury, the near new VLocity trains were actually running a service that day.

And on the other side of town, I found V/Line’s retired fleet of carriages stored in some sidings, covered in graffiti.

Taking the back roads

Along the way I found country pubs.

Overgrown cemeteries.

Quiet railway stations.

And abandoned ones.

Repeater huts for the Sydney–Melbourne co-axial cable

The Headlie Taylor Header Museum.

The Rock Regional Observatory

And field after field of canola.

Junee, a railway town

I stopped in at the railway town of Junee.

Going for a wander around the Junee Roundhouse Railway Museum.

And took a drive out to the Bethungra Spiral.

Where northbound trains loop around the hill via a tunnel.

And then cross back over themselves, as they climb the grade towards Sydney.

Random industries along the way

At Benalla I found the largest precast concrete facility in the Southern Hemisphere.

Churning out concrete tunnel lining segments for the West Gate Tunnel project.

At Ettamogah I went past the former Norske Skog paper mill.

At the Wodonga Logistics Precinct the state government had just paid $5.5 million for a new natural gas connection.

And in the paddocks outside Uranquinty I found a gas fired power station.

Outside Wagga Wagga was industry galore – the Austrak plant was churning out concrete railway sleepers.

Enirgi Power Storage had a lead acid battery recycling facility.

And Southern Oil Refining had a lube oil recycling plant.

At Berrima I found the Boral cement works.

Maldon had the Allied Mills flour mill.

Outside Marulan I had to stop for an off-road dump truck crossing my path.

And finally, on the Hum Highway I breezed by the Marulan heavy vehicle inspection station.

Photographing freight trains

Of course I’m not going to drive all the way up to New South Wales and not photograph freight trains!

Yet I managed to find the same steel train that goes past my house every day.

Grain trains were the big thing this time of the year.

Trains run by multiple operators.

Moving the harvest in conventional hopper wagons.

As well as specialised containers.

Something different was a train transporting containerised ore to Port Kembla.

Port rail shuttles at Port Botany.

Triple headed intrastate container trains to regional terminals.

And the garbage train which transports Sydney’s waste to a giant landfill outside Canberra.

Rail in, rail out

At the Berrima cement works I found the whole supply chain moving by rail.

Lime from Marulan South.

And aggregate from the Lynwood quarry.

And finished cement despatched by rail.

Along with clinker for further processing.

Coal, coal, coal

Coal is big business up in New South Wales.

And I saw train hauling it everywhere.

Snaking through suburban railway stations.

And through the hills.

Bound for the export terminal at Port Kembla.

A weekend of heritage trains

The October long weekend in NSW was of rail heritage events – the first being Streamliners 2022 at the Goulburn Roundhouse Railway Museum.

With fireworks closing out the event.

The Lachlan Valley Railway was also running train trips from Goulburn to Tarago.

I also visited the Goulburn Crookwell Heritage Railway.

Going for a ride on their gangers trolleys.

Meanwhile Sydney had their annual Transport Heritage Expo.

Steam trains running trips throughout the weekend.

Along with Sydney’s early single-deck electric trains.

Country railcars.

And heritage double decker buses.

Trams in Sydney

I finally got to see the completed CBD and South East Light Rail.

Which uses as wire free power supply down to Circular Quay.

I also paid a visit to the Sydney Tramway Museum.

Where I ended up on a *Melbourne* tram. 😂

And ferries

I couldn’t go to Sydney without photographing a few ferries, including the new Emerald class.

And River class.

But I’m a fan of the older First Fleet class.

And the classic double ended Manly ferries.

Along the Illawarra

I headed down towards Wollongong despite some horrible weather.

Finding trains winding their way down the escarpment.

Along a curving railway.

Following the coast.

Until they finally ended up at the tiny stations of the Port Kembla branch line.

Shipping steel at Port Kembla

I couldn’t miss visiting the Bluescope Port Kembla steelworks.

Iron ore comes in by ship.

Finished steel is shunted around the complex for processing.

And then despatched by rail.

Down the South Coast

I headed down to Kiama, where electric trains terminate.

Passengers switching to a diesel railcar for the last few stops to Bomaderry.

There I found a long grain train headed in the same direction.

Bound for the Shoalhaven Starches plant at Bomaderry, which will turn the grain into wheat starch, gluten and ethanol.

And up into the hills

I took the back roads from Bomaderry back towards the Southern Highlands, driving over the heritage listed Hampden Bridge – one of the few suspension bridges in Australia.

Headed up towards Moreton National Park.

And found Fitzroy Falls.

This scary looking spillway at Pejar Dam.

And what looked like a canal blasted through solid rock.

Which I later discovered was part of the Shoalhaven Scheme – a pumped-storage hydroelectricity facility.

The rain finally clears

After days of rain the sky finally cleared, but the roads were still closed due to flooding.

Looks like I won’t be driving this way!

But at least on one spot along my route, a new high level bridge had opened just in time, taking the road clear of the floodwaters.

Off to Canberra

I decided I’d make a detour via Canberra.

Checking out what passes for the rail service between Sydney and Canberra.

I found a V/Line coach leaving Canberra on the long drive to Bairnsdale.

And the well used first stage of the Canberra Light Rail.

About to be extended south to Woden.

I also made the trip out to the back blocks of Canberra to find their tram depot.

Found one of ACTION’s old orange high floor buses.

A bus with a bike loaded on the front rack.

And dozens of the classic Canberra concrete bus shelters.

And homeward bound

At Albury I found a familiar face – a VLocity train awaiting awaiting departure time for Melbourne.

I decided to head over to Shepparton to capture the end of locomotive hauled trains on that line.

Shunter at work coupling the locomotive up to the carriages.

By the time I got to Murchison East, I was drenched.

My next stop – Bendigo.

My target – Comeng trains awaiting scrapping.

But the weather wasn’t on my side, flood waters rising.

So I high tailed it home, narrowly beating the waters that flooded central Victorian towns like Colbinabbin.

That ended two weeks on the road, followed by two months editing the resulting photos.