Steamfreight 99 - Hightlights and not-so-highlights

[Michael Kurkowski <mk@netstra.com.au>]

Hi All,

After spending what was a seemingly short but certainly tiring weekend at 
Steamfreight 99, I have a few comments. Morons doing anything to ruin your 
photo being my main highlight of this year. 


I had a great weekend up in Maldon. Spent most of yesterday catching trains, 
and most of today photographing them. According to the GPS we had walked 
something like 30km :-) Mind you I am rather stuffed now.

I did not at all care for the cancelled services. It is something that is 
expected anywhere, and adds slight variety from what you could see on the 
timetable. To all the people who whinged like school children about cancelled 
services, wake up to yourselves. At least the preservation society exists! Or 
would you rather see K160, F212, T333, RM58 and numerous passenger cars and 
freight wagons in: new cars, firewood, paddocks rotting away, food tins, etc, 
you get the point.

I do however have one gripe with the changed timetable. The last train was the 
F class with the bouncing passenger lounge and a few other pass. cars. The 
problem was the DERM which was MEANT to be the last service for the day ran 
attached. Many people nearly missed out on the last train back to Maldon 
because of this. The result was that me and the person I was with had to go 
train chasing, literally. About 200m up the line (imagine running through soft 
ballast up the grade between Pipeline and Sinclairs Lane) the train finally 
stopped because the guard saw us and waved the flag. It would have either been 
nice to tell people of this, or run at least the DERM as tabled.

Despite last year being colder than this year, I preferred last years weather. 
The ice added a spectacular effect back then. This year it was wet and windy. A 
snow making machine was a nice instant brainwave that i instantly dismissed :-)

Proud owner of a red Subaru registered NET-580, if you can read this, you 
parked your car right in front of where I set up to get a photo. As the train 
passed you got your prize photo jumped into the car and stormed off to probably 
ruin someone elses photo. In addition, I was in the spot for at least 10-15 
minutes prior to your arrival.

Me and two other people from this newsgroup set up in the paddock near the 
trestle to take photos of the mixed headed by the T and the K. Old moron parks 
trackside near the trestle (that was not so bad) and begins walking his 4 
grandchildren (or whoever the kids were) right in front of our line of fire, 
despite many yells to tell him he was in our shot he continued to ignore us and 
walk right to the trestle, while the train was passing. One of us had a word to 
him on his way back (straight after the train passed) and all he could say 
"Well I dont see any problem, you need some life in your shot, you should have 
appreciated it". If you can read this, you will know very well who you are, 
congratulations, you're a moron.

Reggie with his human impersonating microphone. All I heard him do all weekend 
was whinge about what should and should not have happened this year. i.e. kids 
should be banned because they were a nuisance and wouldnt contribute anything, 
VGR should just pluck money out of the air and convert RM58 back to it's 
original state (i.e. before refurbishment), last night's listening stop train 
was not good enough, complaining about their incompetance because of having to 
cancel trains, etc. Well reggie boy, let's see you try and do better.

High levels of inconsiderate cars travelling trackside. Okay, I don't mind so 
much allowing cars but for gods sake, if you are going to drive trackside BE 
RESPONSIBLE! If you see a group of photographers nearby, or maybe even just 
one, be considerate. They were there first. Don't park your car near what would 
be considered someone's line of fire. Better still, do what most people, 
including me did. WALK, CATCH A TRAIN. Why are there the four stops that most 
pass. trains stopped at? For people who wanted to be track side. 


Aside from all that, thank you for bringing us all, gunzels and non-gunzels 
alike, a great and successful weekend. I hope to be there next year as well, 
and along with that, hope to see some more faces familiar to this group!

Regards
Michael