Re: when did Vic stop using buffers?

["Lineman" <grime@dcsi.net.au>]

James Brook <ajmbrook@ozemail.com.au> wrote in message
37FEE4B4.35894504@ozemail.com.au">news:37FEE4B4.35894504@ozemail.com.au...
>     There were still buffers on some four-wheelers when they were
withdrawn in
> the 80's and there are a few wagons with preservation groups that still
have
<super snip>
That is correct. I went through the shunters class at Melbourne yard in 1980
and the class was taught how to negotiate the buffers safely for
couple/uncouple functions and it was not an experience that you would want
to have to repeat many many times daily.Long live auto couplers.
They used to drum into you in every Victorian railways class the following
message,which is still just as valid today.
The best safety device known is a careful man (person today I guess)
As if to reinforce that message a shunter who was filling in at Spencer St
at that time(an area which was some what specialised in the shunter
hierarchy)was caught between the ends of two passenger cars while easing
up.The result was instant and fatal.
Lineman