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