Re: R711 trip to St. Arnaud on 4th July

[Notagunzel <notagunzel@bigfoot.com>]

Roderick Smith wrote:
 
> R711 performed well, but the tour ran late for a variety of reasons:
> * late start after one carriage had to be replaced.

Stated fault was no heating & no Air con, my BK suffered the same faults
but wasn't replaced. :o(

> * overtime watering (various places).
> * significant delays waiting for manual train orders at several stations,
> as section-authority working was not working.

Unfortunately the Portable LSDU died, so the train had to be worked
under Electronic/Manual working.  This involves the Controller obtaining
the Authority out of the workstation, and dictating it to the Driver of
the train, who takes it down on a Manual Authority form.  Because under
SAW each authority only covers one section, and only 2 authorities can
be granted at once, it meant that the train had to stop at every 2nd
location to obtain fresh authorities.  This was aggregated on the Up at
the Block Points between Ballarat & Nth Geelong, because the train can't
relinquish the rear authority until it has passed the block point, and
can't pass the block point until a forward authority is held, thus
meaning a stop at each location.  Further delays were encounted at one
point when the Train to Base Radio died for about 5 minutes while
waiting for an authority.

> * turning at St Arnaud before watering, so the imbalanced turntable jammed
> (a predictable problem - it has happened there before, and at Mildura).
> 
> Time was saved by deleting the one photostop when the sun was shining, and
> eliminating the stop at Creswick to allow those who had boarded there to
> alight (they went home by taxi from Ballarat).  Water was not taken at
> Ballarat on the up journey, in a fruitless attempt to get to North Geelong
> before the down Overland; the special was held at Gheringhap.  For the
> first time in many years, the train got back so late that it missed the
> last suburban trains.  Despite the governments promise of a common weekend
> timetable, this has not been done.  Last trains on Sunday leave at 23.30
> (0.00 Mon.-Sat.).

132 minutes down on arrival at SSS. Although 90% of time lost as a/c the
SAW failure, the tabled path seemed a bit tight anyway.
 
> aus.rail poster Craig Haber was the conductor on the tour.  He invited all
> posters to make themselves known, and I was able to to this (briefly -
> Craig was rushed busy for most of the day).

One notable point was the train was actually a WCR train, VLP wasn't
involved at all.  Conductor Haber actually worked the full shift
himself, & only 2 sets of steam crew were used.

> I looked for the Sosmobile during the ascent of Ingliston bank, but did not
> see it.

Both the Sosmobile & ICR707 were spied at various places during the day,
must pay more attention Rod :o)

-- 
Mr Notagunzel.
Trying to avoid the Gunzels.
notagunzel@bigfoot.com
(Thinking about doing something more at
http://www.bigfoot.com/~notagunzel)