Gold Coast express pickup at Vulture St

[petan@NOSPAMion.com.au (PETer and susAN)]

The Gold Coast Express made a non standard stop at Vulture St station to pick up after the fireworks
and RAAF F111 flame show at Southbank [former EXPO site] last night. The time was about 9:45pm but
the train was late due to the huge crowds etc. The usual is stop at South Brisbane than express
through the suburbs. 

While coming to Brisbane in the afternoon we here held just south of Kuraby. The announcement over
the PA was the delay was due to  a crippled train ahead. The signals than let us get to Kuraby
station where the doors were kept locked and we were told the delay was due to signals. Than one
crew member used the PA to ask the other to open the doors and give the crowd on the platform a
"lift into town". Doors opened and grateful passengers poured on while PA announcements told them
the train was express to South Brisbane.  A long car set [perhaps 9 /12 cars, we were moving too
fast to count] was in Altandi southbound platform. The extra number of carriages at Altandi
"suggests" the following [a] outbound train failed on steep Altandi bank [b] following suburban set
used to push it into the platform [c] single line operation using points at perhaps Sunnybank and
Kuraby. There might be crossover points at Runcorn for the Bradford Kendall foundry? My train left
Robina at 2:48pm for its timetabled 140kph journey to Brisbane.

Cheers
Peter Cokley