"Rail Tales of New South Wales"
By Tony Woodland
Paperback cover 32 pages colour & black/white photos
INTRODUCTION
I was born in that great country town (now a city) of Wagga Wagga in 1943. Dad was at the time the only teacher at Yarragundry, which was located 10 miles out of Wagga on the Urana Road (Sturt Highway) just over half way to Collingullie. The school and its adjacent residence was located on the southern side of the highway, just past Sandy Creek, on the corner of Yarragundry Lane. The school building has been demolished but the house is still there, surrounded by much more bush than the earliest photograph that I have of it.
Where are the trains? At Wagga Wagga - ten miles away, but soon there was to be a change.
On the death of my grandmother at Mittagong in 1944 a decision was made to relocate to that town at the beginning of 1945 and dad became a teacher at the Lower MIttagong school, which some will recall was a place for delinquent boys and not really a sought after place. However, we moved into my grandfather's house in Bessemer Street; the house was then known as 'Yarrobil' and was situated just up from the Hume Highway. Bessemer Street led to the railway line up and under bridge, all of which was viewable from the kitchen. From there I saw all those locomotives and carriages that we all would drool over today.
Probably my best recollection is that of a 57 class loco heading into the up refuge siding/petroleum siding (which was on formation of the original Great Southern Railway and the connection from the Joadja line) for some reason or another. It went so slowly, but years later I realised that the rails were at the best 80lb/yd or maybe less.
Come with me while we take a look at operations as I remember them in the following cities and towns: Goulburn, Mittagong, Captains Flat, Trundle, Parkes, Broken Hill and Fairfield.