Railway Panorama Number 1
Trains look great running beside the water and the first scenes on this video are in 1989 near Hawkesbury River Station, the Hawkesbury River bridge, and beside Brisbane Water at Woy Woy and Gosford. Featured are electric interurbans both double and single deckers, 46 class and 86 class electric locos, including bicentennial, on freights with double and triple heading and the XPT, plus brief views of the local maritime activity.
The next location is Cowan Bank and Boronia No 1 Tunnel area, as electric locos earn their keep hauling heavy freights up the steep grades, or ease them down on their regenerative brakes, while interurbans glide by effortlessly.
Next we move to diesel territory, the main southern line, firstly at Menangle, then near Douglas Park and Picton as GM power in the form of 422 class, double 81 class, 81 + Victorian C, and G class alone move the Canberra Express, wheat trains and general goods through picturesque scenery. An up XPT passes a down freighter on an S curve.
For a section on nostalgia, its on to Young where this delightful station is now served by a road coach, while Cootamundra West, a large, beautiful but abandoned station is looked at in some detail, then Cootamundra and Wagga Wagga station with its beautiful garden. A good look at the quite spectacular process of thermit welding of rail follows, then, just west of Murrumburrah, the Intercapital Daylight with 80 and Bicentennial 81 locos, weaves its way through the picturesque countryside.
The video concludes with the west, at Glenbrook Gorge and Katoomba with Flying Scotsman & 3801 as the Scotsman departs for Western Australia.
Railway Panorama Number 2
1989 marked the 25th anniversary of Sydneys double deck suburban cars, and this edition opens in 1989 with a look at the activities of Sydney's suburban trains on the Harbour Bridge, North Shore line tunnel approach at Waverton, and at St.Leonards which is undergoing reconstuction. Trains include Tangara, and one of the last of the stainless steel 2 deckers still in red paint. Next follows a period spent at Summer Hill, to capture the non-stop activity in the late afternoon of 8 August 1989. This sequence includes the good old red single deckers, as well as just about every type of suburban and interurban set in service, but not a single Tangara! On this day a series of "holes" had developed in the down main line, and it is interesting to see how the various trains cope with this. Two of our remaining loco-hauled passenger trains are seen, powered by 422 class locos, as well as some XPTs.
The opportunity is taken with the dense traffic to record the full sequence of a 6 lamp automatic colour light signal. This is then compared with the much older electro-pneumatic signals at St.Peters, and with an electric motor powered upper quadrant signal at Menangle.
The Unanderra-Moss Vale line is visited, to record a freight with 81 class Clyde-GM diesel descending on dynamic brake, 42201 on the regular weekend excursion train, and preserved steam rtriple header with 4-6-4 tank 3112, 4-6-0 no. 3001 and 2-8-2 no. 5910, in a series of views from just above Unanderra to Moss Vale, where the engines are seen being serviced, and departing in the late afternoon, the total steam activity being broken only by the passage of triple 81 class diesels on a freight.
The 8th Sept 1989 was on the "Back to Bulli" weekend, and regular south coast electrics are seen with the addition of steam as 2-8-2 no. 5910 makes one of its special trips from Bulli.
Lithgow is next, where, after a brief look at the wonderful mural on the bridge over the railway near the station, we find streamlined Pacific 3801 blasting up the grade on a rail tour. Soon triple 86 class electric locos use their regenerative brakes to ease a goods, with articulated wagons included, down the steep grade, as Zig Zag Railway's DD17 class makes its way up the hill over the stone viaduct of middle road of the old Lithgow Zig Zag.
2 DISC BOX
Approximate run time: 115 minutes.