Re: Steepest train/tram line

["Rod" <berlina@mt.bigpond.com>]

Krel wrote in message <36690ace.13124229@news.netconnect.com.au>...
>On 5 Dec 1998 09:27:10 GMT, markbau1@aol.comQQQQyuk (MarkBau1) wrote:
>
>>Steep grades, you wanna know about steep grades? We had one in Victoria,
it was
>>so steep we used to poop in our pants as we went through Ballan on any up
>>train! :-)
>>
>I will NEVER understand why Victorian enginmen make such a big deal
>about a 1 in 48 grade


BIG SNIP>>>I am thinking that BIGPOND don't send me half the messages they
should, I keep seeing the remains of messages and so don't know where these
remnants started....

but IMHO Victorian Enginemen don't "poop their pants" anywhere.......
326L brakes were modified because all our rolling stock [in the 70's were 4
wheelers with old triple valves!...and Vicrail got away with it for so long,
just because my mates were that good....We rarely got into trouble, because
we were..are real Train Drivers!
New South Wales crews enjoyed airtight bogie vehicles with grade control and
Load control,
twenty years before we started to see this equipment about the early 60's
when the SG bought us into the real world.
NSW restricted the loads and the lines that 4 wheelers could run on!...and
so they should have! NSW had a lot more hills than us.
After spending my first ten years on the job at Wodonga, running NSW
vehicles on the gauge, and Red Rattlers around the Melb suburbs, I managed
to get to Dynon. My first night shift was
a Y class and 6 trucks to Bendigo, rerturn a loaded rice train 75 GY's and a
ZL, hauled by a B Class and 3 Flat tops [T's].
Now my first ten years only prepared me for this, because of the training
and good sense shown me by men like Billy Welch, Mick Mathews, George Lynch
Jeff Williams and Gerald Dee. Even the ones I didn't think knew how to
drive, all got by, because they had it firmly installed into them during the
5 to 10 years they "fired" ....etc.....
Now I put this train over the top let her roll to 20 mph and hit the brakes
hard, she went up to 40 mph and hung there for some time and as I caught
sight of the distant...green...released and pumped up as she eased up int
the station and repeated this each station to Sunbury.
First thing next morning go find Gerald Dee.... Hell of a trip last
night...etc
Gerald's answer "you did it just right son, You don't think I would have let
you out there otherwise do you?" The bugger had let me do my retraining runs
on the Bendigo Line on Pass Trains, so my first  Goods experience with a
brand new fireman, was "On me own"

Also the Maintaining feature was cut out, because on a train of GY's the
maintaining air was too much for the old triples and fully 2\3 of the train
brakes would release, on the way down from Ballan or Macedon.

Rod