I was aware of a lot of this. I was aware that
the rule books were similar, but not that they were nearly identical.
As for the station architecture, having just been through some of the west
country by rail whilst in the UK on business there are even more
similarities. Although the old VR never erected a pagoda shelter on a
platform, even some of the timber buildings are similar. Many signal
cabins have similar structures as well.
The Lara-Swindon connection is a new one to me (on this same trip I made
the connection "change at Swindon for Didcot" to visit the Railway centre
there).
Read it in the book I mentioned.
Naming a "G". There was an easy way around this, "But Mr Roper, it's
named after the wine growing area in the west of the state" True railway
people would know the truth.
At the
time the Minister wanted to name the A's and N's after Melbourne Cup winners
and VFL footballers, (about 4 A's were named after Brownlow winners), the
AFULE and Senior PTC Management both objected to this so the Minister got his
back up.
Bob.