Our last overseas trip, and The Ocean

Or First World problems before the wheels fell completely off!

Part 3 - Halifax back to Montreal, and home

After a bit more of a look around Halifax, we arrived at the station in plenty of time, hoping to change our sleeping car berth from our allocated Renaissance car, to one of the two cabins in the Park Car.

Halifax railway station booking hall

The booking system was down, so that wasn't able to be done, and we were told to speak to the train manager when we boarded, which didn't work out for us, he promised to come back to us, but we didn't see him again. We later figured out an off duty Via employee had snaffled it, so not to be.

Not the most attractive scene, but the jumbled ice and mud of the Bay of Fundy was rather interesting.

Once again, we settled in upstairs in the Park Car until lunch, then back again to watch the passing scenery. The railway skirts the Bay of Fundy which has a massive tidal variance of 16 metres. Due to the wintery time of year, there were chunks of ice, some the size of a small car sitting on the mud flats, waiting for the water to come back in and re-float them.

Passing back through Moncton, and into heavy forests, it was snowing again, watching it whipping up behind the train which was quite mesmerising, I'm not sure the crews of the trains we crossed standing trackside giving a rolling observation were quite so enthralled!

After watching our train pass, the crew set the road for their train to rejoin the mainline, I was certainly glad to be getting the photo from inside the train, not throwing the points.

The train, and Park Car were fairly empty, so we had the run of the observation lounge and dome with barely anyone else to be seen.

I really enjoy sitting up in the front of the dome late into the evening, with the headlight of the locomotive, and lights from the carriages cutting through the countryside, sipping on a whisky and just relaxing with the movement of the train, there really isn't much I'd rather be doing.

The following morning, sunrise had us back near Quebec, the same routine of pulling into Sainte Foy, before reversing across the river, this time into the frozen Joffre railyards in Charny, on the southern bank of the St. Lawrence river.

Icicles hanging from the signals, and glassy ice covered tracks at Joffre.

While the 500 km section north of here to Matapédia was covered in darkness both ways, we now had daylight all the way to Montreal for the last 250km, or three hours of our trip.

Being early March, the backyard swimming pools and gardens were frozen and snowy as we passed through towns, similarly paddocks, creeks and rivers were icy, all the way into Montreal.

Icy fields, and a neat looking farm as we sped through the countryside

We crossed the St Lawrence River, and Canal de la Rive Sud on an impressive 26 span truss bridge, complete with lifting section over the canal, which forms part of the St. Lawrence Seaway.

The Adirondack, Amtrak’s service between Montreal and New York passing The Ocean on the St Lawrence River bridge.

Not long after crossing the river, we arrived at the former Canadian National Station, Gare centrale de Montréal or  less exciting in English, Montreal Central Station. Opened in 1943, the booking hall has some stunning Art Deco reliefs on the walls, with plenty of light, however when viewed from outside, the station is a bit disappointing.

Some of the bas relief decorations in Montreal Central.

It was constructed with the sale of air rights above the tracks firmly in mind, and a mere five years after it opened, the International Civil Aviation Organisation built over the northeast part of the station, followed in 1956 by the CN railway hotel, The Queen Elizabeth on the western portion in 1956. A carpark for the new CN head office in 1960, and finally it was hidden by the 1966 Terminal Tower.

There's a lot of parallels with Melbourne in the same era, Gas and Fuel towers anyone?

The stunning Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral sits across the street from the railway station, with its collection of inelegant high rise buildings on top.

We didn't pass up the opportunity to stay one more night in a Railway Hotel, The Queen Elizabeth has a direct connection to the station, and has hosted some famous guests over the years, including John Lennon and Yoko Ono, where they had their fourth 'Bed in for peace', and recorded 'Give Peace a Chance'.

The staff were great, and looked up to see if the room was occupied, which it was while we were there, otherwise we would have had a tour!

We spent the remainder of the day wandering around the city, some great old streets and buildings close to the river around the old city and port area, and a mix of old and new further uptown.

Montreal has a mix of French and English looking buildings, with a dash of New York and 60s Melbourne thrown in to the mix, it was an interesting city to explore.

A great example of the cultural mix was the Hector Guimard Art Nouveau Paris Metro station entrance in Square Victoria.

Next day, late in the afternoon it was time to head for home. Conversations were becoming more Covid focused, and stories of shortages in supermarket in Australia were starting to become widespread, so we weren't really sure what to expect.

We were unfortunately transiting through LA again, but with several hours up our sleeve at the end of our six hour flight, we should have been fine…

Our plane was late getting away, which wasn't a massive problem, later landing, and then we sat on the tarmac waiting to dock at our gate. Time was starting to slip by as we waited, and waited, an announcement came over that an Air Alaska plane was sitting at our gate, and would move shortly. It didn't.

We were starting to run out of time, so after a discussion with the hostess, she was able to get a message through to the Qantas gate to say we were on the way, sort of.

Eventually the plane taxied to the gate, and were hustled to the front of the queue and wished good luck!

Our time exploring the terminal at our earlier forced layover came in very handy, knowing which way we had to go, and the shortest route through the maze of tunnels between terminals at the airport..

We were literally running, with our names being called over the PA, and as we got closer, Qantas staff directing us where to go.

We were last on the plane, with the doors being closed behind us, dripping with sweat, and panting, I'm sure the other passengers were wrapped to see us (particularly those eying off the vacant seats).

Back in Melbourne on Sunday morning to find out if we'd arrived after midnight that night we'd have to quarantine at home for two weeks.

Monday it was into the office, grab my computer and a spare monitor, and then adapt to working at home, like so many others who were lucky enough to have jobs, and be able to.

It was a great trip, with a few little first world adventure problems on the way, but that's what memories are made of.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading what turned out to be rather a long piece, I’ll be focusing on some of the steam and otherwise tours that are running at the moment in the next post.

Our last overseas trip, and The Ocean

Or First World problems before the wheels fell completely off!

Part 2 - Off to the Maritimes.

Toronto’s Union Station was undergoing a refurbishment when we passed through, great to see the magnificent building being kept in fantastic condition.

Next morning, it was back across the road to Union Station, and off to Halifax, via Montreal.

For the most part, our rail travel so far had been behind mostly F40PH locos, and that wasn’t going to change, however, at Montreal we would be swapping the early 1980s LRC passenger cars for something a little different, Renaissance sleeping cars with a 1950s Budd ‘Park’ car bringing up the rear.

A fairly typical Via Rail train at Toronto, F40PH loco up the front, with LRC cars behind.

The Renaissance cars were built in the UK in 1995 to provide a sleeping car service between the UK and Europe, known as ‘Nightstar’, a sister service to the ‘Eurostar’. It never actually got off the ground, and Via Rail purchased them in 2000.

After boarding the train, and checking out our compartment with its typical fold down beds, toilet and shower, we made our way back to the Park Car for our 7pm departure, not long before we headed to the dining car for dinner.

The Park Cars (named after Canadian National Parks) would have to be the favourite passenger car I’ve travelled in. With a curved observation lounge at the rear, a dome area upstairs, and a small bar / lounge area in the lower middle of the car, finished off with two sleeping compartments they are a fantastic piece of 1950s streamlined railway equipment.

This was the first run of The Ocean since the blockades were lifted, and it was fairly quiet, so for the most part, we had the dome to ourselves. 

After our previous trip on The Canadian, which was all Budd cars, seeing the smaller English loading gauge Renaissance cars between us and the loco was a bit different, clearly showing how much bigger the North American railway equipment is!

Moncton is a refuelling stop for the train on its way north to Halifax, which gave some time to get a few shots of the train. The size difference between the UK built Renaissance cars, and the Park Car is considerable.

We were retracing our travels over the first part of our journey, as the train headed for Quebec City, then followed the St. Lawrence before turning into New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

An interesting part of this is that the train doesn’t actually go all the way into Quebec City Gare du Palais Station, rather, it crosses the St. Lawrence and stops some 7km short at Sainte - Foy station. After completing station work, the train reverses back out across the river, before proceeding north again.

It was around 11pm  - maybe closer to midnight when we left Sainte Foy. I was in the Park Car, so got to witness the interesting operation, the ‘Headlight’ above the rear door of the park car was turned on, and with the door open, the train slowly started to reverse back whence we came.

Unfortunately, my camera was four carriages away, and I wasn’t actually sure how far we were pushing back, so I missed capturing this really interesting aspect of the trip, but it’s an amazing memory.

Next morning we woke to falling snow at Matapédia, just before crossing into New Brunswick, and it continued for most of the day.

Bathurst, New Brunswick, with a stop in the steadily falling snow to pick up a few more passengers. Taken from my favourite seat on the train, up the front of the Park Car dome.

A few other trains were passed, nothing as big as we saw on the Transcontinental route, but some were still impressive. Halifax was, and still is an important port city, which certainly accounts for a lot of container traffic.

Lunch in the Renaissance dining car was quite good, more airline style, rather than freshly cooked, but with an interesting selection of local beers and Canadian wines, something Via Rail does very well at.

We had a slow trip, not helped by some signal failures, and arrived at Moncton, a refuelling stop for the train a couple of hours late at most at around 2:30 pm. This triggered in interesting event. It really didn’t seem to be that long since we had lunch, but due to the late running, the catering crew had arranged for chicken and chips to be delivered to the train. I was happily taking photos, and talking to the driver when the Train Manager came running down to tell me to get back on the train, yelling out “we’ve got chicken, you need to get back on”!

Refueling both man and machine at Moncton,

The second loco was still being fuelled at this stage, but regardless, I wandered back, as told, after getting a photo of the driver in front of the train, with his boxes of chicken :).

We had some of our second lunch, still not super hungry, well before the train departed Moncton, and had a fairly uneventful arrival into Halifax in the dark some four and a half hours later.

The following morning, we set out in the sea mist to explore Halifax.

The 1803 Town Clock peers through the fog, with the Citadel out of sight behind it.

It was fairly chilly, and didn’t really improve as we explored Citadel Hill, with its fort built by the British to overlook the harbour. The commanding position high up on the hill is the reason why the city developed where it is today. Another important building on the hill is the Town Clock, which marked time both for the military, and townsfolk alike. Walking back down towards the harbour took us past the clock tower of the City Hall, which has one of its four faces still displaying four minutes past nine, the time of a massive explosion that destroyed a large part of the waterfront, and killed 2000 people on December 6, 1917 in what was the largest man made explosion until the atomic bomb detonations in Japan in 1945.

We learned more about this at the Maritime museum later in the day..

We wandered past several Donair cafes - a regional twist with lamb and garlic yogurt being replaced by beef mince and condensed milk (we didn’t attempt it), and on toward the Old Burying Ground, which dates back to 1749, when the settlement of Halifax was founded.

Some notable ‘residents’ include Major General Robert Ross, who led a raiding party to invade Washington DC, and amongst other buildings, set fire to the White House, leaving it nothing more than a burnt out shell.

The Old Burying Ground, as old as the European settlement of Halifax itself.

The waterfront, like most modern port cities has been ‘cleaned up’, with heavy container shipping moved further around the bay, away from the city centre. The old warehouses are still there with shops and bars, and, closer to the water, some artisanal crafts were worth a visit.

There was a silversmith, and a little further along, a crystal glassware atelier, where craftsmen were blowing and cutting beautiful pieces.

Cutting patterns into the crystal, so much skill in blowing the shape, marking out the patterns, and finishing it so they are all the same.

It was fascinating watching the glassblowers in action, and, something I hadn’t seen before, the cutters at work. We ended up bringing home a couple of whisky glasses - nice at the time, and even more so now. While writing this up, I found that NovaScotian Crystal has closed after 24 years.

We wandered down to the wharf where so many Canadians headed off to both the first, and second world wars, supporting The Empire, never to see home again. The mist set an appropriate tone for this sombre site.

A ferry from Dartmouth emerges from the fog near the Last Steps memorial on the Halifax waterfront. The Ferry service is the second oldest saltwater ferry route in the world, and has been operating since 1752

Next on our itinerary was the maritime museum. Halifax is the closest port on the North American continent to Europe, and as such played an important role in connecting Canada, the US and The Continent, as well as the UK.

Many mail routes passed through Halifax to and from New York, and the city was the birth place of companies that became famous, the White Star Line being one of them.

Halifax also played a large part in the aftermath of the loss of White Star’s Titanic, being closest to the disaster, many survivors, and casualties of the sinking made landfall there.

A deckchair from RMS Titanic, one of many fantastic items on display in the double story, beautifully presented museum.

The museum has an amazing collection of artefacts of the area’s maritime history, including large scale models of various ships and equipment, a deckchair from Titanic, as well as other salvaged items,
https://maritimemuseum.novascotia.ca

The Halifax Explosion which I mentioned earlier also features in the museum - the cause of the explosion was two ships colliding in the harbour. The Imo heading to New York, and the incoming Mont-Blanc, loaded with a hull full of explosives, and a deck cargo of petrochemicals, which set off a massive three kiloton explosion that devastated Halifax, and showered debris up to eight kilometres away. It severed underwater communications cables to the continent, and killed more than 1700 people.

It might sound like we had a rather gloomy macabre time in Halifax, but it was all very interesting!

Our late lunch was a seafood platter overlooking the foggy harbour, where regular ferries criss crossed to and from Dartmouth, barely visible through the fog.

Lobster, Prawns, Scallops, fish and chips with an ocean view, you can’t really go wrong.

More wandering in the afternoon until it was dark and that was about it for our visit to Halifax as we were on the train again next day.

There's still plenty more to see in Halifax and surrounding areas, so another trip on The Ocean is on the revisit list. I’ll continue our journey in the next instalment.

Our last overseas trip, and The Ocean

Or First World problems before the wheels fell completely off!

Part 1.

March 2020 was an interesting time, to say the least. Janelle and I had been looking forward to revisiting Canada, and travelling on another of ViaRail’s long distance trips, The Ocean, from Montreal to Halifax and return. I’ll write about our trip on The Canadian another time.

We’d booked months earlier, in the days where we had our next trip booked before we embarked on our current adventure, so had our flights, accommodation, and rail travel booked in.

The basic itinerary was fly into Quebec via LA and Montreal, for a few days. Then train to Ottawa for a couple of nights, down to Toronto for several more days, back up to Montreal, and then catch The Ocean to Halifax. Due to leave constraints, and it was still winter, we were on the return service of the same train two nights later, and booked to fly out of Montreal  home via LA International.

And this is where 2020 stepped in…

In an ongoing environmental battle to prevent a 670km long Costal Gas Pipeline project passing through their lands, the Wetʼsuwetʼen First Nations peoples had started erecting blockades to prevent the pipeline construction. They had been protesting since 2010 against the foreign funded consortium, but things were getting heated.

After the Mounties moved in and dismantled the barriers, and arrested numbers of people, other protests started, with the Toronto to Montreal rail line, and others blockaded on February 6.

This resulted in most passenger and freight rail traffic being suspended for a period of weeks on the main east coast corridor, until the various police forces eventually moved in to clear the barricades on February 24.

Watching this from home, and seeing all our trains being cancelled, we were a little unsure of how things were going to play out. There were no rail replacement busses on offer, Via Rail were basically saying sorry, make your own arrangements to their thousands of paying customers who were travelling for very different reasons than a couple of Australian tourists on a sightseeing trip!

Happily for us, (and no doubt all the Canadian people trying to get from one place to another), one by one, the emails started coming in saying that the trains we had booked on would be running. By the time we left home, there was only three not yet confirmed, so things were looking up.

We left home just as Covid was starting to become a thing - there was 1000 cases confirmed worldwide, it’s just another Flu “they” said…

Arriving at LA International airport (LAX) is daunting. The place is vastly huge, and handles large numbers of flights, seemingly inversely proportional to the care given by the staff at Arrivals. 

Our plane, and two others arrived just prior to Arrivals opening, which meant the escalators were running, but barricades at the bottom were closed. As you can imagine, it got chaotic very quickly, with people literally starting to pile up on each other until someone was able to hit the emergency stop button. 

Once they opened up, things were little better. Someone came through asking for people with connecting flights, and handed out little cards to prioritise our traffic through the terminal, and directed us to stand in the same queue as everyone else…

We missed our connecting flight to Montreal, but fortunately, the fantastic Canadian Airlines staff booked us on the next available, two flights later to Montreal (and as we found out, the flight to Quebec as priority passengers).

We now had hours at LAX, and time to explore, so we had a bit of a wander between the different terminals, and found somewhat of a shortcut which didn’t involve going outside the buildings.

We eventually made it to Quebec, and checked in to the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, getting to our room at 3am!

I’ve forgotten to mention the blizzards. Huge snow dumps had blanketed Canada in the days before we arrived, so everything was a couple of feet deep in snow when we woke up.

The stunning Château Frontenac, even with scaffolding is a sight to behold. The winter toboggan run was very popular!

Our room in this fantastic former Canadian Pacific Railway hotel was tucked up in the peaks and rooftops of this Hogwart’s castle, In the Unesco listed old city, the hotel itself seems to tower over everything, particularly when viewed from down by the riverside in the Quartier Petit Champlain.

The semi frozen St Lawrence river is still very much tidal here, some 580km from the mouth of the river, and quite icy at that time of year. It was confusing initially after arriving in the dark, seeing flow in what I assumed was towards the ocean, and then later in the day swing back the other way. I’m hopeless at directions in the northern hemisphere for some reason, despite being fairly good at home.

Old Quebec City was (and still is) in a commanding position over the river, and was fought over several times between the French and English between 1629, and 1763!

A couple of nights here, then it was on to Ottawa, travelling on a ViaRail service to the Country’s capital.

One of the more architecturally interesting stations we’ve ever caught a train from was Quebec Gare du Palais. It was built by Canadian Pacific Railway, in a similar style to the Chateau.

We again stayed in a Railway Hotel, the stunning Château Laurier, built by the Grand Trunk Railway, later Canadian National, across the road from the railway station, which has long closed.

While there’s no longer an adjacent railway, it was easy to see where the line once passed between the hotel and the locks of the Rideau canal as it descends to the Ottawa river.

Looking down the Rideau Canal locks, with the Canadian houses of Parliament on the left, and Château Laurier on the right. The railway once passed through the area where the arched windows are, heading down to the Alexandra bridge spanning the Ottawa River, and border with Quebec. In winter, a stretch of the canal almost 8 km long is used for ice skating

The Canadian Parliament buildings, viewed from Victoria Island. The semi frozen Ottawa River was flowing fairly quickly, likely the reason why it wasn’t solid on top.

We had a full day exploring Ottawa, and visited a couple of craft breweries, Mill St. and Beyond The Pale, as well as wandering past the stunning old parliament buildings.

Ottawa is home to two light rail systems, which have had some teething troubles, land subsidence during construction, and a couple of nasty derailments. Hopefully they overcome the issues sooner rather than later!

Next leg was Toronto. 

We had been to Toronto in 2018. However, due to our flight being delayed by 24 hours ( The Dreamliner had been struck by lightning), we hadn’t had much of a look around before we boarded The Canadian.

Once again, we booked into a railway hotel, this time The Royal York, opposite Toronto Union Station. The hotel was undergoing major renovations on our first visit, with the main foyer a construction site. Seeing it returned to its glory was great to admire.

The then recently refurbished Clockwork Bar in the main foyer of The Royal York Hotel.

Built by Canadian Pacific in 1929, it is linked to Union Station with an underground passageway, as well as the PATH system of under street passages, which stretches for almost 30km under the city!

GO Transit (Government of Ontario Transit) Lakeside line train pulling into Toronto Union Station. These MP40 locos make up the bulk of the GO horsepower, usually at one end of the train, with a driving cab fitted car at the other end.

Janelle was attending a conference for a couple of days, so I arranged to meet up with photographer and rail enthusiast, Ryan Gaynor for a day of chasing trains around his hometown of Hamilton. I caught a GO Bi level train pushed by a MP40 locomotive. We had a great day of photographing on some of the industrial lines, my first visit to Tim Hortons for coffee, as well as chasing a couple of trains further into the countryside before Ryan dropped me back off in Toronto. 

A Canadian Pacific train load of steel wagons outside an old brickworks in Hamilton, Ontario. We chased this train up the hill towards Niagara, catching it again at Vinelands.

The following day was sleeting and a little miserable, but I ticked off a visit and tour of the Steam Whistle Brewery, located in the old John St. locomotive roundhouse. Interestingly, the building had been entirely dismantled, the site dug up for construction of an underground carpark, and then the building, and turntable reassembled as key features of Roundhouse Park historic railway precinct above it!

Light sleety snow was enough to encourage me into Steam Whistle Brewing, in the old John St. Roundhouse, on the edge of Toronto’s city centre. Aside from making a nice Pilsner, they also give tours of the brewery, and their section of the roundhouse.

Fortunately, the day after was a bit brighter, so I set out to get some more rail photos. I went to the old Toronto station, and waited trackside for an hour or two for no result. In the afternoon, I caught the Metro, and walked to another spot I’d seen plenty of railway photos tagged in on Instagram, Blood Brothers brewing. 

A mix of horsepower on the front of this mixed freight, including a Union Pacific loco in third position. There’s still plenty of vintage searchlight signals to be seen in Canada, including these GRS units. I used to overhaul them in our relay workshop 20 years ago!

Here I had a bit more luck with a couple of trains, and also got to visit the brewery too!

I’ll continue our railway journey to Halifax and return in the next post, thanks for reading.

So, what did you do on the weekend?

It’s the age old question for most people heading back to work on Monday mornings.

This weekend, there was a couple of interesting rail activities happening, Steamrail Victoria ran their first trip of the year, The Otway Explorer, from Melbourne to Colac on the northern fringe of the Otway ranges, and on to Warrnambool.

Westbound trains in the morning, and eastbound in the afternoon can be a pain for light (or an opportunity if you get creative), but either way I gave Saturday’s trip a miss. 

I’d decided not to travel on it a while ago, as I’m not keen on sitting on a train for hours with a mask on, just something I’ll have to get used to eventually I suppose.

Sunday was a bit different. I usually have a bit of an idea of what interesting freight is running around through friends and a couple of Facebook groups, and Friday there was rumours of a grain train running from Melbourne’s Tottenham yard, to Manangatang in the north.

What made this stand out is that it was to run in daylight, which is rare,  and the locomotives on it were an interesting selection from the 1950s, 60s and 80s.

It was also timed to leave at a comfortable 11:50, so plenty of time to do a few things at home, then head out for the afternoon.

Leaving home at 11, I swung past Tottenham to make sure it was still there, as freight schedules can be a bit rubbery, and saw it was slowly moving up the yard, so I headed to Brooklyn. Brooklyn is a junction station where lines from Sunshine and Tottenham converge and lead to Newport, and beyond. The line from Tottenham is dual gauge, both standard (1435mm, or 4’8 1/2”) and broad (1600mm or 5’3”). Brooklyn to Newport is dual track, both able to be operated as single lines with trains running in either direction, although the ‘West’ line has been booked out of service for a number of years.

I found myself a nice ballast pile for a bit of extra height, and set up for what I thought would only be a couple of minutes…

About 20 minutes later, the level crossing bells started ringing, and a horn from Newport direction sounded as two standard gauge locos came through, having been serviced at the UGL centre at Spotswood. Once they cleared the yard at Tottenham, the grain was able to get underway.

NR 105 and 9323 pass through Brooklyn on their way from the UGL maintenance depot at Spotswood. The ‘East’ line was converted to dual gauge in the 90s, while the ‘West’ remained broad gauge, and is currently booked out of service.

With the oldest loco,  GM Bulldog S302 leading the way, its older classmate S317 next in the classic back to back configuration, smaller locos T363 and P16, with a third S class, 312 bringing up the rear. Plenty of horsepower for an empty train, thankfully with an 80kmh limit giving half a chance to get some shots and overtake it again.

1957 built S302 leading the way from Tottenham, the line in the background heads to Sunshine, past the silos in the background.

Little River was my next choice however I decided against, and circling the outskirts of Geelong, went to Moorabool on the Geelong to Ballarat line. There’s a few options here,   I selected a spot where I could shoot the train climbing out of Geelong through Bell Post Hill and Lovely Banks with the massive grain terminal in the background.

Before our train of interest, there was another standard gauge train, also an empty grain which would head west at Geringhap, towards Ararat, while our broad gauge train would swing north towards Ballarat.

G classes 540 and 542 climb out of Geelong with empty grain wagons to Marmalake, in Victoria’s Wimmera district.

There was another pile of ballast here too, so I chose that over a closer to trackside location where there were three other people waiting to get some photos.

In due course, a headlight could be picked up in the distance, and then despite the wind, the healthy chatter of some of General Motors finest diesels singing a happy tune.

Some nice whistle work for the enthusiasts at the crossing as the train powered past, and time to be off again.

Safely back off the Ballast pile and into the car, I overtook the train at Geringhap, as it also went past the standard gauge grain, and started thinking about my next shot. 

While chasing steam out there in May last year, the runway of the Lethbridge airport with its windsock caught my eye as a future opportunity, so I decided to give it a go. 

It didn’t turn out as well as I hoped, but it’s somewhere I want to experiment with, maybe directly down the runway next time.

Next shot was locked in my head, curving out of Meredith past where the up distant signal stood until a couple of weeks ago, shame it went when it did, but that’s progress.

Swinging towards Boundary Rd. at Meredith, the crew have the train well in hand and cruising along at around 80kmh.

From here things didn’t go according to plan. There’s a lovely forest section between Yendon and Lal Lal with some nice curves and cuttings, that from distant memories seemed like a good thing. 

I caught the back of the train by Yendon, and headed off the main road on the skinny single strip of bitumen that follows the line. Despite it being bouncy, I soon overtook the locos, taking a few moments of windows down to absorb the ambience before pressing on.

Eventually, the road came to a crossroad, and the dirt road into the forest was my chosen path. It started out reasonable, but quickly became a deeply rutted track, nothing like I remembered. 

Despite some spirited driving on the few decent bits, the train doing a solid 80kmh very quickly overtook me, and left me in its wake.

There’s a speed restriction on the line at Lal Lal which allowed me to once again overtake it, and enjoy the sound as the train accelerated, before heading to Navigators, where there is a bluestone bridge over the line.

Plenty of shots get taken from the bridge, but I decided to include it in my shot instead.

As can be seen, the bridge was built to accommodate double line. which was how the line was originally laid between Geelong in Ballarat in 1862. A change to flat bottomed rail in 1934 saw the cost saving measure of only upgrading one track, and removing the other.

The red earth on the other side of the bridge is where the Melbourne bound platform once stood, This side was out of use very early on, with the in service platform on the right of the track as we face it. The station was renamed ‘Railmotor Stopping Place 11’ in 1956, and closed entirely in 1978.

I decided to give up the chase from here and cut for home, leaving others to continue.

It was a great few hours of chasing trains, getting some photos, and generally having a fun day out (before getting stuck on work calls to 10:30pm)!

I hope your weekend was whatever you wanted it to be, and you’ve had a great week so far.

Regards,

Scott

A Work Anniversary

Hi Everyone, 

I hope you’ve have a great Christmas and New Years break, and had some time to relax and catch up with family and friends.

I mentioned in my about page that I’d been working in the rail industry for a fair while, 27 January 2022 actually marks the start of my 35th year!

It seems forever ago that Mum, Dad and my sister dropped me off in Newport where I was boarding, a 16 year old kid who hadn’t spent that much time in the city at all, let alone by myself.

Next morning, I was up bright and early to pedal my bike down to Newport workshop, once the heart of the Victorian Railways  to commence my apprenticeship.

There were lots of other kids starting their railway careers that day, electrical fitters, painters, boilermakers, electricians, fitters and turners, car builders, upholsterers,  almost any trade you could name, and they were there from all over the city and the state.

TAFE was just next door to the workshops, and right beside the Geelong railway, which saw a fair bit of interstate rail traffic, as well as local goods trains, including some shunting at the nearby refineries. 

As the railways was yet to embrace radios for a lot of the shunting, the loco used on these short trips used to have a goodly number of shunters sitting and lounging around on the front of the little Y class so when they got to some of the curvier sidings they could relay hand signals to the driver to start and stop as required. It’s  something that’s very much vanished from the modern railway scene with the traffic long since lost to road transport, and many of the sidings built over.

The Steamrail Victoria depot was also on that side of the workshops, and a common shortcut from TAFE to Newport station was up a rarely used siding, and onto the main walking path. 

After only seeing infrequent steam tours to Bendigo, it was fantastic to wander around the main hub where the locos and carriages were restored and maintained.

There was also a “Workshops train”, a suburban service that ran into the workshop complex in plenty of time for people to get to their section and take their token off the hook to prove they were there and start their day.

In the afternoons, the reverse happened, knock off time came, and the workshops train was waiting to slowly trundle up to Newport station and on to Flinders St.

It was certainly an interesting time, and I’m lucky to have made some friends from those days that I still catch up with, still work with, or bump into occasionally from other parts of the business.

I’ll finish up today with the first photo I took in Melbourne when I moved down, it’s not dated, and won’t win any awards, but its a little piece of my history. Looking towards the Yarra from Platform 14 at Spencer St. The white building in the background is still there, but B84 was retired in May 1988, and platform 16 at Southern Cross is about where the goods lines it’s running on is now.

The old No 1. Goods shed has long gone, with those familiar with modern Melbourne would now know it as near where the “Big Bird” at the curve in Wurundjeri way stands.

Regards,

Scott

A Very European Christmas

With the Christmas festive season well and truly on our doorstep, I’d like to take this opportunity to thank you all for subscribing to A Railway Life, and starting this journey with me.

Way back in April 2009, friends from the UK were back in Melbourne for their wedding. At one of the pre, or post wedding catch-ups, the idea of German Christmas the following year was discussed over a few drinks, as there was a couple of notable birthdays coming up.

Despite these sort of enthusiastic discussions usually ending in little more than conversation, as a group of three couples (plus our then 13 year old), some effort was put in, and we actually made it happen!

The location chosen was the Harz Mountains in Central Germany, an area with a rich history of folklore and fairytales.

With Silver mines that had been in production for over a thousand years, and a fantastic metre gauge steam operated railway in regular service, what more could you ask for?

We ended up staying in the Unesco heritage listed town of Goslar, in one of the towers that once formed part of the town’s defensive walls.

Goslar town square and its wonderful Christmas Market.

It had been snowing heavily for the weeks leading up to Christmas, so the half timber, half slate clad houses were certainly something out of a fairytale, and the Christmas market was fantastic!

The Harz Mountain Railways

The Harzer Schmalspurbahnen, or HSB, is the grouping of interconnected metre gauge railways forming a 140km network. The line features regular steam hauled trains on most sections, with the exception of the line between Eisfelder Talmühle and Stiege, which is operated by railmotors. With 25 steam locomotives, the HSB is no tourist railway, it’s the real deal in the 21st century!

We travelled twice, firstly as a whole group we had an outing to The Brocken, and a day or two later, we left the ladies and our son to explore Goslar, while three of us headed to Eisfelder Talmühle for a day on the trains. Both journeys commenced from Wernigerode, where there are major locomotive facilities, and an interchange with the DB main line, an easy connection from Goslar.

The Brocken

In Goethe’s ‘Faust’, and other popular literary references, the peak of The Brocken is the site of revelry for witches on Walpurgisnacht (Walpurgis eve, April 30).

The Brockenbahn was constructed south west into the mountains as far as Drei Annen Hohne, before heading for the highest peak in this, Germany’s northernmost mountain range. Popular with hikers, even in the 1890s when the line was built, the main reason for its existence was for tourism. 

Post world war II, the mountaintop was the site of GDR and Stasi radio surveillance facilities until reunification in 1989.

The day of our trip, it wasn’t snowing, but as is often the case, the mountain (and much of the surrounding country) was shrouded in thick cloud.  

Fortunately, the trains are all steam heated, so cosy and warm, but with end platforms on the carriages offering a great viewing platform, a fair bit of time was spent braving the cold.

Drei Annen Hohne is a major junction station on the line, with the Trans Harz line continuing south to another junction at Eisfelder Talmühle, and onto Nordhausen.

After the steep climb from Wernigerode, our train stopped to take on water, before branching off to Schierke, and the climb to the Brocken.

Arriving at Schierke, we had a pleasant surprise, with Santa joining the train! For our mostly Aussie group, it was something to behold, and changed Christmas for us forever. Shopping centre Santas on a blistering summers day just don’t seem right anymore.

Santa in an appropriate Christmas Card setting at Schierke

Continuing on, we were passing through pine covered hillsides, the trees heavy with snow giving the impression of witches hunched over against the cold, to my imagination anyway.

After we arrived at the peak, we didn’t wander very far, the snow was as high as the train, and with virtually no visibility, we caught the returning train to Wernigerode, and visited the Christmas market.

Eisfelder Talmühle

Oiling round one of the locomotives in steam ready for its day’s work

This was more of a boys day out, we arrived in Wernigerode in plenty of time to wander around the loco depot and get some photos, before boarding our 11:55 train to Eisfelder.

Our train also required servicing before continuing its journey, which gave time to photograph a Brocken service departing in fine style, before rejoining our train. 

A train bound for the Brocken departs, as our Eisfelder train takes on water.

With only a handful of passengers aside from ourselves, we had our choice of windows and end platforms to enjoy the ride. The Conductor occasionally passed through the train with snacks and drinks for sale, the local Schnapps was well appreciated!

Eisfelder has a fairly large station building including a bar / cafe as is common in parts of Germany, and is the junction with the line to Stiege, which has a regular rail motor service to Nordhausen. The south bound rail motor was at the station when we arrived, and shortly after, the Stiege service arrived, giving the opportunity to capture the three services in photos. 

Three trains at Eisfelder.

Once the Nordhausen train left, our steam loco ran around the other end of the train, ready for the return to Wernigerode.
This meant that the funnel of the loco, and warm smokebox was up against the front of the first carriage, so guess where we set up!

The two lines are parallel for some distance leaving the station, and with both services timetabled to leave at the same time, it was great to be passed by, and then repass the rail motor a couple of times before both trains swung of on their separate ways. Arriving back in Drei Annen Hohne, we left the train and had a couple of beers in the station bar and watched trains arrive and depart, before catching one back to Wernigerode, and then Goslar.

Two Wernigerode trains sitting at Drei Annen Hohne, the one on the left is our train from Eisfelder.

It was an amazing trip, one I’d love to do again in winter!

Thanks again for subscribing, I hope you and your loved ones have a merry Christmas, and a safe and Happy New Year!

Regards,

Scott

How I shot Falcons Lookout

While it’s sometimes possible to just arrive beside the track, wait for a train, and off you go, I more often than not put a fair bit of planning into my photographs. (I have also stood in snow in Canada at -6 Celsius waiting and hoping for hours for little reward)!

 For a few years, I’d looked across at the Melbourne to Ballarat railway line through this section near a rock face known as Falcons Lookout, wondering if brief glimpse of the Ironbark Gully Bridge might be worth trying to do something about, but wasn’t sure if it was even feasible. 

After helping friends move house last year, returning from Ballarat I had the good fortune to spot a train travelling through this section, and thought yes, I’m going to be able to do something.

Planning the shot

A bit of Google Earth research showed it was just over 4km from the freeway to the railway, and digging deeper, looking at lens sizes, a 400mm zoom  (which I didn’t have) was effectively the same as a 8x pair of binoculars (which I did have)!

Dragging out the binoculars, and having a practice locally as we were back in lockdown showed it was a reasonable option. All I had to do was wait for Covid restrictions to lift, an interesting train, hire a lens, and hope the weather was ok. It was a long term plan, I’d waited a couple of years already, so no rush.

Restrictions lifted, and with a few steam loco driver training runs to Ballarat planned, I looked at the train times, and where the light would be coming from to see if it was a suitable time of year for the shot using an App called PhotoPils.

A great little App, it allows you to drop a pin where you want to shoot from, and see where the light will land - it also gives sun and moon rise and set, and altitudes.

A Photopils screen shot, the arrow pointing from where I was shooting, to the bridge itself.

Next was the lens.

I started looking at lens hire. The cost of the lens I wanted to hire for a few days (and had always wanted to add to my collection) wasn’t too bad, but after a little shopping around I went and actually bought it outright the afternoon before the trip was going to run!

My lens of choice was a Canon 100-400 F4.5-5.6 IS II. It certainly gave the reach I needed, plus the flexibility of overlapping with my 24-105mm lens.

It’s a very nice piece of gear, super sharp, the only drawback being it’s rather heavy!

Shot time!

We headed out leaving plenty of time to scope out exactly where I wanted to get the best angle, and were lucky enough to have a couple of Vline passenger trains to practice on.

There was a northerly wind blowing, so pushing the smoke away from the train, but also making it a little difficult to hold everything steady. 

It’s not a problem from a shake perspective, the lens and camera have fantastic image stabilisation, it was holding my composition where I wanted it - I had decided against using a tripod so I wasn’t locked into one position.

Right on time, the train appeared climbing into the flatter section of Bank Box Loop, where trains can pass, so I took a couple of shots, one of which is below.

 Leaving Bank Box, the train then enters into a bushland section, before with only a little notice, crossing the bridge.

I ended up taking five photos as the train approached, crossed, and headed back into the bush, but as usual, there’s one that stands out from the others.

The Image has ended up in two magazines, Railway Digest, and as a centre spread in Newsrail.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about how I took the photo, and it’s given you some appreciation to some of the effort that goes into getting them.

Regards, 

Scott

A taste of high speed travel

High speed rail lines. They’re one of the many ways that Europe differs from Australia (and there are many)! These lines link the larger cities within countries, and work is progressing on faster links between European destinations.

Prior to our first trip to Europe in 2008, the fastest I’d travelled in a train was in NSW on the XPT service from Melbourne to Sydney. And the 160kmh milestone was only for a very short portion of the journey.

After spending time in Paris, we headed south to Avignon, some 650 km away, which by the legendary TGV (Train Grande Vitesse), was covered in less than three hours!

France’s first high speed rail line, the route still uses some sections of steam era routes, obviously much improved, but the high speed sections allowed for running at up to 300kmh.

For some Australian context, Melbourne to Goulburn is 680 km, and takes almost nine hours, on the very same XPT I mentioned earlier.

To say that the trip from Paris to Avignon was enjoyable is an understatement! Aside from those brief moments when a plane takes off and lands, I’d never been so fast on the ground! And it was super smooth.

Since then, we’ve travelled on the high speed rail lines in the UK, Germany and Italy, I think the German ICE trains are the pick of the bunch, but would happily climb aboard any of them!

Not all TGV journeys are high speed for their entirety. Some routes, such as across to the Alps at Annecy use a portion of high speed line, then take to slower, more winding traditional lines.

Similarly, the line towards Strasbourg, and beyond into Germany, has some amazing 320kmh running out through the Champagne region. It then follows a river and canal twisting and turning for a portion of the journey - the next stage is being constructed to bypass this scenic section.

One of the highlights of the latest generation trains on this route is an in-carriage speedometer, where you can keep and eye on just how fast the countryside out the window is flashing past you.

Or, you can track your progress on the on train wi-fi - also great fun!

Scott.

What interests you about Railways?

Welcome to A Railway Life, a space to admire, and if you like it, chose some of my railway photography to take home with you, or gift to someone you know will enjoy it. I think most of us would have grown up with model railways as kids, and for those fortunate enough, had steam trains visit your home town.

I was lucky growing up, my home town of Bendigo was a railway hub, had frequent train services, and, during the grain season, lots of long, heavy trains heading south to ports of Melbourne and Geelong with a steep climb ahead of them.

I still have fond memories of having my bedroom windows wide open in the night, despite the mosquitos, listening to the trains climbing up to the Big Hill tunnel, the noise fading in and out, and the scent of the diesel exhaust in the air until it was quiet again.

What draws you to trains and railways?