Re: Train driving with the SGR.

["Rod Young" <berlina@littlepond.com>]

BIG SNIP
 the controls.
: Expect to get a sore neck when you have to drive the T with the 
: No 2 end leading as all the controls are behind you.
: Hood units with only single driving controls are the pits,(is it only the
PTC 
: who have these??)
: 
: cheers
: Maurie Daly
: 
: Sounds like great fun for the uninitiated..um...Wonder how they get
around the legal aspects. But I am all for it.
The only small problem I have is with, the chance that another idiot will
learn how to move an engine or train, hopefully the $300>$400 will ensure
they dont get the chance.
Let me explain! A few years ago, and for at least a couple of years, some
of us
suspected that a dead driver had returned to this life, lost and with
nothing more to do
than play funny buggers with his old mates at Dynon!
Old Jimwould send us out [from the Fuel Point] to get a T and take it from
the Turntable to the RailMotor Loop and couple it to X39 for the
Bendigo...anyway either the T or the X would be missing. A search would
find it at the dead end near the bogie exchange or somewhere else. This
happened regularly, but because of the
large number of people working the area, people would shrug it off, and say
the old fella was restless last night again?
     Things got a  little more serious when a loco rolled into the
turntable pit, others rolled off the deadends of the broadgauge T/T and
others were found derailed out the back.
     More serious was an N that sailed out past the TR point without
permission and started heading up towards Spencer St and on the surface no
body seemed to be in charge. fortunately the handbrake was still on. And
powering in the second notch
heated up the wheels/blocks untill the expansion and a pair of points
[turns the bogie and tightens the chain]stopped the engine, before it could
enter onto the Flinders St Viaduct and head o a Spark. A driver sitting in
a nearby engine raced over and secured the Engine which was
driverless.Someone saw a fellow departing the scene
quickly, he was caught, and the mystery of the moving engines was at last
solved.
He admitted to it and with the help of padlocks securing both this
individual and every V/Line engine, they all seem to stay where they are
put now....
Now with all these frustrated drivers out there ,Lets hope no one will try
this very dangerous practice again. 
       Nearly thirty years a Fan and 25 years a train Driver tells me
though, that although 95% of us are pretty good types...The outher 5% are
the biggest DICKHEADS you will ever find anywhere.
                                                         Have a Good one,
						Rod 

PS Ran the oily out of Wodonga every day last week, alternating X39 and
X47, and I
am so used to backward controlls, didnt even notice the difference,always
run the old 
X's short end for visibility, but especially the noise..better to leave it
behind than travel into it...eh