a good weekend for gunzelling in Vic (long)

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

[life story follows....]

Hi,

Well im glad to report that Victoria had a good weekend to gunzel in. 
Saturday was Elecrail's Tait tour, for the spark gunzels that exist among 
us (me included).

Beginning on Saturday was a very early morning up, and arrive at Newport 
sufficiently early to get any pre-tour gunzelling in as well. Upon arriving 
at Newport, spotted was 8178 on a goods through Newport. I figured since I 
had nothing better to do for the next hour or so, I would introduce my 
parents to the art of train chasing. Turn the corner at the lights, turn 
left, tell dad to put foot down as 81 is gaining, speed alert on car beeps, 
car suddenly slows down. Well I got my photo, so I didnt mind (Sad person I 
am, i know).

Then it was to get dropped off, and find food. While that was happening, 
R711 and it's dwn Warrnambool pass was going through. Lovely sounding 
whistle its got now, well better than the pathetic trash it had before.

Arrive Newport and I knew the special wasn't far off, I could see all the 
gunzels scattered all over the place, Motormouth and Reggie included. Tait 
arrives, I get my seat. Guess who sits across from me, Reggie. Well this 
was certainly going to be an exciting trip, with mutterances coming from 
him like "oww get in there you duck f***er" (Said to Minidisc recorder 
while trying to insert something into it, a Minidisc) and "better be no 
f***ing yapping, is that clear?". My tolerance levels were high this day, 
so i coped. I strategically placed myself far enough from Motormouth to not 
have to listen all day.

Well getting to the interesting parts, of note on the Flinders Street 
viaduct was Great Northern's flat top, T345 with a works train, doing deck 
work to the viaduct. Nothing else really of note on this trip. The 
photostops were fairly well organised this trip, unlike the F class trip 
where everyone scattered around like headless chickens while time was fast 
ticking away. It was also reported, that while on one of the photostops, we 
kept a level crossing down for about 5 minutes, in which about 10 cars were 
reported to have made it through. We nearly collected the 11th.

After the special, I wandered off down to North Melbourne, as one would do 
coming from Newport, and looked down GNRS yard only to find EL51 and EL62 
sitting there. Got my photos and took off.

Today, I wandered off down to Spencer Street. Nothing really exciting 
there, other than odd platform changes all over the place, including North 
Melbourne. Northern line trains were running from Platform 12, while 
Caulfield group trains were using Platform 13. Platform 11 was not in use. 
I noticed T345 was sitting in the section beyound platform 8 at Spencer 
Street (parcels dock?), while the Unidentified Sittying Y, had the works 
train on the viaduct today.

At Cheltenham, photographed the Kermit (K190) special, that was running 
between Caulfield and Mordialloc. Did my photo of the up run (running 
tender first), then boarded the next spark down to Mordialloc. Photographed 
Kermit Special arriving at Mordialloc, and loco changing end, boarded 
Kermit Special and enjoyed the trip back to Caulfield. No foaming gunzels 
were to be found on this special, however I did notice someone who was 
possibly from this group (Was that you Yuri?) on the last steam back to 
caulfield.

Who ever said Victoria was boring, NSW, you can have your 38's and your 
Alcos :-)

p.s. What was the problem at Belgrave, on the spark special, which required 
disconnection of power jumpers and general messing around between the cars?

Regards
Michael


-- 
Michael Kurkowski
Email: mk@netstra.com.au
Website: http://www.netstra.com.au/~mk
ICQ: 1459118
Telephone: 0416-044-124

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