With the wheat harvest in full swing in NSW, following is a sample of an evening's traffic on the main south , observed
at Exeter and Bundanoon last night (9 Jan). I have excluded local Endeavour services and Explorer railcars, but left in the
XPT as "loco hauled".
Time / Direction/ Train Number / Locos/ Description & Destination
(at Exeter)
1835 DN 9247 2 x 81 Empty Limestone - Medway (didn't get loco nos)
1840 DN 2SM2 8146 +8178 Freightcorp - Melbourne (wlc at Exeter)
( at Bundanoon)
2000 UP 3928?? 8157 + 8128 Wheat - Inner Harbour, Pt Kembla
2029 DN 9827 8168+8148 Empty wheat - Parkes
2045 UP 3PS6 NR's 100 +68+ 103+15 NRC - Cooks River - monster train, prob. 1500m
2135 DN 6SM5 NR's 6 + 52 (Indigenous) NRC - Melbourne
2137 UP 3934 8113 Wheat - Inner Harbour
2245 DN ST1 XPT Countrylink - Melbourne
2253 UP 3936 8184+8137 Wheat - Inner Harbour
2259 DN 9329 8167+8166 Empty Wheat - Temora
2315 UP 2948 8179+8110 Limestone ex Medway - to Cringila
2331 UP 3932 8183 + 8213 Wheat - Inner Harbour (the only 82 class!)
2354 UP 4YN2 NR's 66+22+29 NRC SteelLink - Pt Kembla
(Sat am)
0032 DN 9331 8176+8111 Empty wheat - Junee
0033 UP 6MB2 NR's 81+75 NRC - Brisbane
0059 UP 6MS3 8142+8169 Freightcorp - Enfield
This is a fairly typical evening, but not as busy as it could have been, as the "Yo Yo" Medway - Berrima shuttles had ceased for the
weekend. There was no sign of Austrac's 6SM7, due Goulburn 2205 (may have run early), and the Up Canberra Oil, 2138, was cancelled.
For train watchers, there is a convenient "gap" between 7 and 8pm to have dinner - and the Bundanoon hotel has an excellent carvery!
The wonders of block working at these signal boxes adds to the interest on a busy night. While rumours of a replacement signalling system for Moss Vale- Wingello persist, one of the existing semaphores at Bundanoon was recently upgraded to a steel post.
Finally, its apparent that the 81's are being well employed on wheat traffic - in a little over six hours, I saw 20 of them , representing almost a quarter of the class total.
Cheers,
Paul Hogan
pghogan@bigpond.com