Dooen time!

Hi All,

This started out as a bit of a mini post, but grew legs as I started writing, and then I added a couple of extra extensions on.

I haven’t been out much in the last few weeks, a combination of work, weather, model railway time and minor renovations has kept me close to home.

News a couple of weeks ago on the jungle drums was that SCT logistics would be hiring former VR locos C501, and X31 from Seymour Rail Heritage Centre, as well as CLF2, owned by Railpower to operate the Dooen to Appleton dock service.

Dooen is close to Horsham in Western Victoria, around 400km west of Melbourne. There’s a major intermodal hub there which generates enough rail traffic for a daily train.

C501 has previously been hired to SCT, but it’s X31’s first venture onto standard gauge since the mid 80s, so its certainly got enthusiasts up and about.

I’ve missed the train a couple of times, but when I received a text Thursday afternoon that it was between Geelong and Lara, and I was close to home, I thought I’d go for a look.

I think I’ve mentioned before in another post that the Geelong railway runs roughly east - west, so anything heading into town has the sun behind it, and high this time of year, not super photographic conditions.

Once the line gets to Newport however, it swings back around to the northwest, and heads to Brooklyn, between Newport and Sunshine. Here the line splits, with a broad gauge line continuing to Sunshine, and dual gauge towards Tottenham, and the city.

The line between Brooklyn and Newport is double tracked, with the ‘east’ line being dual gauged, and the ‘west’ line broad gauge only.

Currently the west line is booked out of service, and has been for some years.

While not the most scenic line by any stretch of the imagination, it is fairly popular with photographers due to its geographic alignment.

In days past it was a busy section of track with numerous abattoirs, factory sidings, scrap steel, quarry and even a railway tip siding.

Tottenham had a large shunting yard where trains were made up to go to various destinations, and freight travelling to Geelong, Warnambool, and Adelaide via the plains to Cressy all funnelled through this section. Further out in the industrial west trains of tank wagons from the Geelong and Altona refineries, as well as car components being shipped between the Geelong and Broadmeadows plant at Somerton also passed through daily.

Brooklyn up until the 90s was a busy place!

The main standard gauge line to Adelaide via Cressy and Ararat across the plains provides most of the traffic through now, with the occasional broad gauge goods.

There is also a train from a quarry at Kilmore East that runs daily to either Brooklyn via Sunshine, or to Westall on the Dandenong line as well.

That seems to have headed down a rabbit hole, perhaps I need to start adding some diagrams and maps into these posts, what do you think?

Brooklyn is a tangle of trackwork, signalling, associated boxes and signs, yard lights over the remaining sidings, as well as the busy Somerville road crossing, all the hardware of operating a railway. I had half an idea forming as I drove out there about framing the train in this tangle of infrastructure, using a lot of zoom to compress it all together - and thread through other aspects I didn’t want.

There were three other people there when I arrived, only one of whom was down where I was thinking of shooting from.

I wandered down and had a chat, and found somewhere I wasn’t going to get in his way, and set up for the train that wasn’t far away by this stage.

It wasn’t too long before a headlight could be seen in the distance, and the gentle chatter of the locos could be heard. The crossing briefly interrupted the ‘music’, but, the locos notched up as they crossed the road, and started the climb towards Tottenham, we were far enough away from the crossing to not have the distraction.

Splitting the sticks at Brooklyn. With seven signals protecting the junction, Brooklyn has a bit going on for a now fairly quiet location.

At that point I was wishing I was taking video, photos just don’t capture the noise!

It took a while for the four locos (modern CSR004 was behind the three interesting ones) and 53 wagons to go past, before the last cleared the crossing, and the booms lifted.

While talking about the SCT and other things rail, a short train appeared from the Tottenham direction, CSR012 with steel containers heading to Laverton, not expected, but added something to the evening. While the Chinese built, German engined CSRs certainly aren’t a fan favourite, they make up part of the current scene, and like everything will eventually become scarce.

CSR 012 with coil steel containers heading west, I assume to Whyalla SA via the Laverton SCT yards.

Not too long after, we were treated to another train heading west, MA5 (Melbourne - Adelaide) with two NRs, and a 1990s Australian National AN class leading the way. The AN was a rare catch, with all 10 members of the class stored out of service until recently.

NRs 39 and 23 lead AN8 into Brooklyn from Tottenham. The line joining from the left is the broad gauge connection to Sunshine, where the silos looming over the train are located.

The train didn’t make it to Geelong, it failed at Elders Loop, between Lara and North Shore, and a pair of relief locos were sent.

I was going to finish this post here, but, I’ve gone out for this train a couple more times, the following Sunday and Monday.

Sunday was a bit of a last minute affair, the train was due out of the docks at 18:50, so in between some sanding, painting, and dinner I ducked up to Footscray.

I took my chances with getting blocked by Vline and Metro services, and set up at a spot to get the train coming up the goods lines under Footscray station.

My luck held  - just, but that’s all you need!

Out of the darkness, and into the light with a putrid windscreen! C501 emerges from under Footscray station into the late afternoon light.

With the Dooen climbing out of the tunnel, a Vlocity has departed from Footscray station, and the laws of gravity - and power to weight dictate the pass will soon scoot past the goods train.

And almost caught. The low summer sun was throwing some strong shadows - and rail glint, as the Vlo overtakes the train.

The next night I went local again, Altona where the line crosses Cherry creek for something a bit different, before cutting back near Brooklyn.

The elegant X class is sandwiched between the higher horsepower CLF and C class as they cross Cherry Creek, in Altona North.

Hauling boxes past boxes in Brooklyn.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post, and please let me know, would you like to see some maps and diagrams to better explain what I’m up to?

The Steamrail Victoria bi-annual open weekend is coming up on the Labour Day long weekend, hopefully I’ll see some of you there!

The Great Southern, part 2

Day three, state three.

Albury railway station clock tower from the corridor window of the Great Southern outside our compartment. The NSWGR built some beautiful stations, many of which are still standing.

  After a bumpy night, the border town of Albury was reached by 6:30am, The train sat for a while, before crossing the Murray River into Victoria. Once over the border we both made use of the shower in our compartment, before heading down to breakfast as we continued south through Wangaratta and Glenrowan. It was a pleasant morning watching the world pass by the window, and the occasional train heading in the opposite direction including a late running Sydney bound XPT. Our first set down stop of the day was at Broadmeadows on Melbourne’s northern outskirts. From here passengers disembarked for several Melbourne sightseeing options, the Melbourne Cricket Ground, a walk around the CBD laneways, and the Eureka tower, with others, us included, choosing to remain on to Inverleigh, west of Geelong.

In contrast to the Northeast, the scenery from Broadmeadows to Werribee through Sunshine and Brooklyn is certainly not what anyone would describe as pretty, and many of our travelling companions certainly didn't!

With its fair share of dumped and burnt out cars, and all other manner of rubbish scattered amongst the thistles, it's not a visual highlight, or something to entice visitors to Melbourne. To be fair, we did traverse some of the more industrial parts of the west, and it’s rare for a railway to travel through a leafy green corridor into any city.

Once out of the wastelands, the scenery gave way to the plains between Werribee and Geelong, with the You Yangs dominating the view to the north. Swinging through North Geelong, the train climbed up through Lovelybanks, crossed the 1862 built Moorabool river viaduct, before leaving the Geelong - Ballarat railway at Geringhap, to head west to Inverleigh.

The Great Southern locked away at Inverleigh as we depart on a coach to Clyde Park winery. The remains of the station platform, and station, a standard Victorian Railways portable building on the right.

The Inverleigh siding is primarily used as a works siding, with a considerable pile of ballast, and not much else. The trains are well set up for low level platforms (or in this case nothing at all), with additional steps provided by the crew.

Clyde Park Winery, on the edge of the Moorabool valley.

Tasting some Clyde Park wine amongst the vines with owner Terry explaining the different wines and grape varieties they grow.

From here, coaches transferred us to Clyde Park winery at Bannockburn, which is perched on the edge of the spectacular Moorabool river valley. A wine tasting, including a visit to the vineyard before lunch was a nice way to relax before rejoining the train with the Melbourne day trippers, and heading off towards Ararat, and South Australia. We liked the winery and lunch so much we’ve been back twice since!

Sunset out near Maroona was stunning, with old and new wind power out the window from the train.

Our last dinner on board was lit up by a stunning sunset followed by some live music and a couple of drinks before heading off to bed for an even bumpier night's sleep - Janelle even woke up laughing at one stage as we were treated to a jumping castle ride on the rough track to the SA border where things improved.

Back across the Murray River, and into Adelaide.

I woke up early with the sun just before the crossing of the Murray River at Murray Bridge, which had burst levee banks as the October floodwaters headed to the ocean. No time for a photo unfortunately, but I made up for that later, which I’ll share in another post.

Dozing for a bit, we headed down for breakfast as we travelled through the eastern side of the Adelaide hills, before descending the winding track down into the suburbs and Adelaide Parklands Terminal, formerly known as Keswick for an 08:45 arrival.

Adelaide Parklands terminal, the end of our rail journey.

Platinum passengers had transfers to their accommodation as part of the package, so it wasn't too long until we had ourselves checked in for a few days stay in Adelaide.

Some of our other travelling companions had booked add on tours with Journey Beyond to the Barossa wine region and other destinations, but we had decided to do our own thing until we caught The Overland back to Melbourne the following Sunday morning.

Would we do it again?

The food was great, level of accommodation really good, and the off train experiences super enjoyable.

There were quite a few people we had spoken to who had 'done' other Journey Beyond trains, and others who have travelled on long distance trains overseas.

This was our first trip on a travel experience train. Other long distance overnight trips we have been on are, or were at the time, genuine passenger services, transporting people between destinations.

We had a great time, but aren't sure we're ready for the cruise lifestyle just yet.

This isn't a criticism of the whole experience, just where we're at currently.

However, the Ghan from Darwin to Adelaide looks like a good trip…