Today my friend Phillip and I decided to go to Willow Court. Those of you who visit our site regularly might remember my post featuring old cars for sale there. They are mostly very old cars and trucks largely in poor condition. I call it the car graveyard as the cars are wrecked but people buy them for parts or to fix up I guess. As there were a lot of different cars I hadn’t seen there I decided to get a few photos. Among them was a big surprise. The sign on this bus said it was the original AC DC tour bus from 1973. I was very surprised and took several photos and here they are.
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I’m not sure if Angus would find this very comfy to travel in now. It was full of junk and most of the seats had been pulled out. It really would be a long way to the shop to buy a sausage roll in this old bus. Still quite exciting to find it at Willow Court. Compared with the other cars, trucks and buses this one was in great shape. I was pleased since it was the AC DC bus. It’s part of rock and roll history.
I thought that I wasn’t going to get to the Hobart Model Train Show this year. Naomi and I had planned to go on Saturday and then my real estate agent rang to see if he could show the house that day. When we have a viewing I need to be at home so that I can take Cindy for a walk while the potential buyers are there. As there are few buses on Saturdays and they were coming mid-morning my chances of going out were nil. I had arranged to have groceries delivered Sunday, a day I rarely go out, but luckily I was able to switch my delivery to Saturday afternoon and free up Sunday for the outing.
As I’ve been going to the Model Train Show every year for a long time now I have seen a lot of the displays before. However, as I only see them once a year that doesn’t really worry me. I tried to look for some new angles to photograph the trains from.
Naomi and I both like the British themed layouts because they remind us of our early childhood. We didn’t travel on trains too often but the town scenes always seem vaguely familiar to me.
Terrace houses in a British themed layout.
We both liked this layout with its rows of terrace houses and the painted backboard which gave the scene more depth.
The roundhouse at Richmond Bridge
We also enjoyed talking to some of the operators. As we love miniature things as well as trains we appreciated the detail in some of the scenes. I think that some of the people who build model railways are very creative and imaginative. They create little scenes which if you spot them may tell a story or make you laugh. One gentleman told us how he’d cut down a model figure to sit inside a car but the figure had folded arms so he didn’t look like he was driving it. People mentioned this so he made up a story about how one of the locals liked to walk his dog off-leash but the dog was badly behaved and would run on the road. The man in the car knew this so he was sitting with his arms folded patiently waiting for the dog to get off the road. It was true. I saw the dog myself.
Richmond Bridge
There were a few layouts based on places in Tasmania and South Australia. The Gawler layout that I wrote about last year was there again and we especially enjoyed seeing that because it was a place we knew quite well at one time and the Redhen railcars were part of our lives for a long time from our early teens through to our thirties when we were cleaning them at the old railcar depot. I do hope someone models that one day. I’d like to see our old workplace in miniature.
SAR/ANR 830 Class
SAR Diesels
SAR 500 Class & wagons
SAR Diesels
Redhens at Gawler
We stopped to say hello to Peter Fielding who as usual had brought a small but detailed display. This year he’d brought “The Poo Train” which showed trains that carried manure. Peter likes to educate and entertain the children but poo was a bit much for us so we just had a quick chat before moving on.
As usual, the Transport Museum volunteers had fired up a locomotive to give rides in the yard. We didn’t go for a ride this year because we’ve done it many times but we did stop to take some photos before we left.
As a railfan, many of my memories revolve around endings. Naomi and I started to travel on steam train excursions when we were in our teens in the 1970s. Regular steam train services had finished and it was a time when many country railway lines were being closed and torn up. We went on many “Last Train To…” trips.
SAR Pacific 621 at Adelaide station
We used the Refreshment Rooms at places like Riverton and Bowman’s just one more time, We visited the towns of Moonta, Kadina and Wallaroo during the Kernewek Lowender, the Cornish Festival. We went to Loxton and Renmark and various little places that were little more than a platform and a sign. We had wonderful times. All those lines are closed now.
Bowman’s Station South Australia
We also saw the end of various suburban branch lines, the line to Penfield with its loop, the line to the Holden factory, even the factory is gone now. It hit us hard when the passenger service to Bridgewater in the Adelaide hills ended. We used that one a lot and when the line from Glanville to Semaphore closed in 1978 that seemed even worse.
SAR RX class locomotive at Glanville, Outer Harbour Line (South Australia)
David worked in the old Adelaide rail yard for several years and eventually, we saw the building he worked in demolished to make way for an updated depot where Naomi and I worked a few years later. Now that too has gone, replaced by Adelaide’s new hospital.
The old Adelaide Yard by David Jensen
Adelaide Yard circa mid 70s photo by David Jensen.
Looking back towards Adelaide from the yard. circa 1987-90
My memories of rail in South Australia are both happy and sad.
*Note:Some of the photos I’ve used here are not mine but I needed them to tell the story. The others were taken by David when he worked in the old Adelaide Yard and on some trips. I can’t always remember who took what from those days as we were both photographing the same things although usually from different points of view. Generally speaking, if it has people in the foreground it will probably be mine and if it is in black and white more than likely his. These pictures were all scanned from photos so the quality is not great.
Here is a more cheery post than I’ve done recently. Today is the first day of the Wooden Boat Festival in Hobart. It is only on once every two years so I didn’t want to miss it. As I was not sure if the bus would be running from Geeveston I opted to stay an extra day with Matt and Ally and go from their place leaving Matt to doggy sit Cindy.
I got a ride to town with Ally who had to work and arrived around 11:30am. Of course, as it was the first day, not all the boats had arrived and many were making their way into the harbour when I arrived. The tall ships that are usually on display were not due until the afternoon and unfortunately, I was not able to stay to see them.
There were still a lot of very nice ones to see though. Some were quite old but a lot of the ones that I saw were built in the last forty years. I’m sorry but I have a hard time thinking of something from the 1990s as old.
I walked around for a couple of hours taking photos of the ones that I liked best. It was already quite busy although still easy to get a seat in the food area where I stopped to get a baked potato for lunch. At this point, I thought I should check on Cindy and messaged Matt. He said that she had been howling a lot and of course I immediately felt guilty for leaving her and cut my visit short.
I did manage to take more than 50 photos though. Here are some of them.
Messing about in boats
MV Goolara built 1958
Pelican and Curlew two boats named for birds.
Talking Boats
Brittania one of the older boats I saw.
Moored at Elizabeth St Pier
Gypsy
I thought that the man in this boat was called Gus but actually it is the name of the boat.
