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Trackside Videos

TRV132

Trackside Videos - TRV132 - Pacific National - The Early Years (DVD)

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In 2002 the operations and rolling stock of National Rail and FreightCorp (which up until that time had been semi-direct competitors in rail freight haulage, the former owned by the Federal, NSW and Victorian governments, the latter by the NSW government) were merged together to become Pacific National. This merged operation was sold to a joint venture between the Patrick Corporation and Toll Holdings, which formed the holding company Asciano.

With respect to the fleet thus created, after a number of trial liveries (notably a blue, yellow and grey applied to a couple of 81 class and a blue nose and body with yellow relief applied to an NE class), PacNat settled with the blue body/yellow nose livery we know today, with the later addition of the Southern Cross stars being applied several years on.

Before any complete repaints of the NR class, the locomotives first had the radiator intake boards (side boards) changed from ‘National Rail’ to ‘PacificNational’ and later the NR logo was stripped from the nose and/or engine compartment sides, and on other classes such as AN, BL, DL either removed of painted out completely. Most of the former FreightCorp classes of locomotives, being blue already, simple had smaller ‘PacificNational’ logo added to the sides of the driving cabs replacing the FreightCorp logo previously there. When PacNat merged Freight Australia into its operation ‘PacificNational’ transfers were applied to these locomotives.

Not surprisingly BL, DL, G, X and 81 class undergoing refurbishment were some of the first locomotives to be repainted in the new livery. The four locally manufactured 90 class received the new livery on construction as did the later 92, 93, TT and PB class. The first 82/90 class repaints with the livery were scheduled for late 2016/early 2017.

This presentation concentrates on early PacNat operations primarily in the period 2002 through 2005. It is biases towards ex National Rail locomotives because at that time, apart from relatively small ‘PacificNational’ decals installed under the driving cabs of former FreightCorp locomotives, there was little other that differentiated them from the FreightCorp livery until they were repainted during major repairs/overhauls. We also see some of these after repainting.  

Approximate run time: 104 minutes.