Re: New Railtour Operator in W.A

[John <johnboll@upnaway.com>]

Aus loco discussion mailing list

I guess it all comes down to the old saying "where there's a will
there's a way", and unfortunately there appears to be no will in ARHS at
present to run the XA's . I am glad to hear that at least one XA is
under cover receiving attention, it all seems pointless though if ARHS
WA Div. cannot run it.

For the Eastern States readers who are not aware ARHS & Hotham Valley
Railway were the two main railtour operators in WA, with ARHS using
mainly the Dd 592 4-6-4 suburban tank loco and XA's 1405 and XA1402.
Hotham Valley's main motive power was and still is 'W' Class steam
locos, PM706, and English Electric 'C' class, as well as EE F40 and EE
G50.

Unfortunately after a rather prolonged overhaul ARHS never had the
pleasure of running S 549 'Greenmount' on it own trains and sadly from
an enthusiast point of view it looks like we will never see it run
again. This was as a result of Westrail requiring operators to gain
accreditation to operate railtours, and to have insurance for each train
which because of the high costs involved, sadly saw the demise of ARHS
railtours. As Hotham Valley are a commercial operation, they
were able to shoulder the extra costs involved.

English Electric 'C' Class and Steam locos are still permitted to work
"under the wires" out of Perth City Station however they can only enter
and depart from the Armadale & Midland lines. There are no run-round
facilities so trains have to
"top 'n' tail" as demonstrated last year with the Perth Mint Centenary
train from Midland to Perth, with PM706 & C1703 as motive power. Trains
are only permitted to stand for a short time while in City Station to
avoid causing problems with suburban train workings.


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