Re: North Australia Railway Mk1

["< Tell >" <telljbAS@ozemail.com.au>]

"Bill McNiven" <wmcniven@gunzel.ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>
> Mmmmm......
> The closure of the Frances Creek iron ore mine killed what was left of the
> NAR ca. 1976.
> 
> Pine Creek Goldfields was not a railway user and went on mining until 1995.
> When I visited Pine Creek in 1990/93
> i    the railway at Pine Creek and at Katherine was intact
> ii    the railway station at Pine Creek was a local museum
> iii at another local museum at Adelaide River, there were the remains of 4
> wheel trucks through-piped for vacuum brakes (a mystery I never solved --
> was the NAR vacuum brake or Westinghouse brake in steam days ... did ex-NAR
> locos sold to TGR and EBR already have vacuum brakes ... were they native
> NAR or ex-WAGR?)


The NAR was vacuum braked up to and including the NSU
class diesel.  NSU's 63 & 64 (the last two members of
the class) had dual braking systems when delivered to
Darwin.  The vacuum brake utilised an "exhauster" as
the poms called it, driven by the Sulzer prime mover
which was a vacuum pump to the rest of us.

I am not sure and neither are the historians when
exactly the NAR was converted to full Westinghouse, but
it was some time after the NSU's were delivered in
1956, it was certainly all air long before the NT class
entered service on the Frances Creek and Mount Bundey
iron ore trains.

Interestingly the chopper couplers remained on goods
and passenger rolling stock until well after the iron
ore trains with their auto couplers commenced service.
The NT class had to use a converter coupler to enable
them to haul goods trains until all of the NAR stock
were converted to automatic or knuckle couplers.

----Tell
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