A 'caders account of Steam Circus 2000 [Was: Re: What a circus Victoria!]

[mk@netstra.com.au (Michael Kurkowski)]

>A full post on all the activities are much appreciated from a railfan
>stuck in the land of the Kiwi

Okay, you asked for it (:

It was a really early start to the day for me, getting up at 0550 to get 
the taxi to the city that would have allowed me to catch the XPT to Albury. 
Why didn't I catch a spark? Who would trust the first train.

Spencer Street was greeted with a pretty stock standard XPT (XP2008 north, 
XP2004 south, 6 car set sandwiched inbetween), and two other gunzels 
waiting in line in front of me for a cab ride. I missed out. In which case, 
I was glad I booked first class, since I don't think I would have lived for 
three hours and four minutes in pleb class. 

Many gunzels lined up track side, scatted throughout, between Melbourne and 
Albury, some even chasing the XPT. Other than the usual VLP trains, we 
crossed BM4 at Chiltern loop at 11:13, with two NR's tail-to-tail. Through 
Wodonga station, we slowed down quite a fair bit, probably for intending 
gunzels to watch the circus that stood in the yard there. Arrival into 
Albury was greeted by many orange-vested gunzels and non-gunzels about, 
seeing to everything running smoothly, and greeting the XPT with many 
photographs and videos, like it was something special.

Soon after, the XPT departed, and 3801+3830 with their train slowly slunk 
into the platform with it's rather plain, but genuine consist of brown and 
silver NSW cars. After a few photos, it was time to head back down through 
the border (Third notch on the NSW bedpost this year) to meet up with the 
colourful steel circus at Wodonga. Pulling into the station carpark, things 
already didn't look pleasant with the presence of a few wooden cars. How 
did they make it from Seymour to Albury on an a line that will only take 
115kph trains?

Things got seemingly dirtier as I saw R761 sporting a shiny fresh Steamrail 
headboard. "The Millennium Aurora" for a headboard, I can understand, and 
even get to like, but... lets not go there, I wasn't a passenger (No right 
to complain). X51 made the stop at Wodonga worth it though. On we 
travelled, to find a nice spot to photograph the train, when we found, 
Barnawartha.

The station looked impressive, but we decided to travel a bit further and 
found a nice photoworthy curve at the 251km post. 3801+3830 came along at 
high speed, and made me realise why I am a railfan - There was no sign 
however of the two R's, oh well, opportunity for a photo of a genuine 
preserved train. Suddenly the R's came hurtling along at full steam, 
catching up with the 38's - They alone, outperformed the looks of the rest 
of the train ("mix-n-match") that they were pulling.

After that, it was express to Benalla which was made a little more painful, 
account the sightseers taking the term "parallel run" to it's full extent. 
In their cars. On the Hume Freeway. 110kph speed limit, 90kph running 
speed. Most probably being the type of people who slow down to look at an 
accident 50m to the side of the road that wouldnt otherwise be causing 
traffic congestion. Listening to the CB, truck drivers were loathesome of 
the traffic, and the gunzels with minorly dampened spirits account the slow 
moving were still excited. 

At Benalla we would drive through the platform, where T320 (good enough 
reason for the chase) stood with various other locomotives and rollingstock 
stood. We drove back down the road where we would join a few others up on 
an embankment, and encounter an inconsiderate (and stupid) gunzel walking 
along the mainline, to come to where we were. Despite numerous waves and 
callings of "get out of the way" he continued to walk along the mainline. 
This was topped off with a VL Commodore full of hoons dragging up and down 
the street we were parked on, calling out obscenities to us, and acting in 
a seemingly drunken stupor. Among all the excitement, my scanner was 
conveniently stored on a sleeper on the unused siding, so I could get my 
photos properly. Once back at the car I thought to myself, it would be nice 
to listen in again, hmm where is the scanner? Doh, it was up that 
embankment. Off I ran, up the embankment, then back down again. As a 
result, the train beat us to our next stop at Euroa.

At Euroa, we saw the official photo line for passengers, yet still not 
enough decency to remove the headboards for this single run. This stupidity 
has nothing to do with me, since I was not a paying passenger, but I would 
imagine there were many MANY disappointed passengers, for that reason. 
Other than that, Euroa was fairly uneventful. The broad guage train was 
sent off ahead of the 38's, account a broad guage pass ("normal 
passengers") up it's clacker. From that point, we took off back down the 
freeway again, and decided at the last minute to take the Mangalore 
turnoff. We were originally going to shoot straight through to Seymour. The 
mangalore turnoff paid off well, finding a nice spot on the junction. We 
put ourselves on the site of a former station.

Silence was put to sleep then. None other than famous NSW gunzel Mr Phil 
Longley parked himself about 20m from us. Of course, because we were 
wearing flack jackets, he started questioning. For 15 minutes (and that is 
no exaggeration) he would continually try to guess which preservation 
society we were involved with. We, answering no to each one he kept 
spitting out. We eventually ignored him. It didn't stop him though. Looks 
like NSW breed their gunzels quite well (about 57.6% more annoying than 
RRL). The minor run-in was in no way as exciting as the Heathcote Junction 
incident of 1988 that I read about 
(http://www.ozemail.com.au/~trainman/heathcote.html). No-one put his car on 
stands this time either. Getting back to the trains however, this was 
probably one of the more spectacular photo spots for the day. 

For the first time, we encountered the full brunt of the 'caders 
procession. Driving in through urban Seymour, I noted a couple of locals 
standing in the middle of one of the streets watching as if something had 
happened. The expression on their faces probably would have won photo of 
the day as they also saw the procession of cars mostly turn into this 
little goat track which led to Seymour loop.

Hopes were fading proportionally to the sunlight, as we stood right at the 
100km post waiting for the two trains to cross the 38's. The sun then 
diminished to the point of not bothering with our current spot, so we drove 
down to the 38's and jumped out. There was an XPT horn, and I just managed 
to run fast to a clear spot and photograph the two trains next to each 
other. The sun was a little short of, gone, at this point so it was time to 
pack up and give up for the day. 

The day wasn't over for me however, I stood in the cold, windy, wet weather 
for two hours waiting for both trains to go past, at the 25km post in 
Glenroy - possibly my favourite (and most convenient) daytime photo spot. 
Arrival for me was about 19:20, and for the next hour and a half it was 
constant mobile phone communication for the status of: The signals were I 
was, and the 38's & R's up the line. The local dogs were fairly welcoming 
of my presence with lots of barking to keep me company. The broad guage 
train then arrived at 20:46. At the same point, word was that 3830 had 
failed. Rain also started. This didn't deter me from waiting for 3801 
though. Been there 1.5 hours, wasn't going to go home to hear it go past 5 
minutes after my arrival. 3801 finally passed, with a nice blast of her 
whistle to conclude my day at 21:10.

Much sleep was sought after such a long but rewarding day.

Regards

Michael (TMI)