Tasmanian Government Railways locomotive C22 in steam at the Tasmanian Transport Museum.
In Steam
Tag: Trains
Cee’s Black & White Photo Challenge: Trains & Tracks
On Track
Of course I have lots of pictures of trains, hundreds in fact, but most of them were taken when we used film cameras, some are even on slide film. I’ll try to find some on the computer that I haven’t shared before or at least not too often. I have again used Adobe Photo Elements 2018 to edit these and played with some different effects.
This is a rerun. I have used it at least once before but I like it. It was taken in the Adelaide Railcar Depot where we used to work. It is a 300 Class diesel railcar probably built in the late 1950s. They had no air conditioning and in summer got very hot, especially when they had been sitting in the yard for hours. They were like ovens and we had to clean them.
Another picture I’ve probably used before but with a different effect. Museum Station in Sydney. Museum is one of our favourites because of its old-time decor so it perfectly suits the vintage look and I even added some scratches.
Tracks can also be for trams. Here is one at the Tram Museum at Loftus outside Sydney.
A V Line locomotive at Southern Cross Station in Melbourne 2014. I shot this through a glass window and was unable to get rid of the reflections but if you look closely you can see a tram reflected in the middle of the picture.
Then of course there are model railways. This one was at a show in Sunbury, Victoria 2014.
This last one is very old, taken on a trip to Alice Springs in the 1980s, one of the few I have of this class of locomotive. At the time this was taken you had to go to Port Pirie or Port Augusta, South Australia to see one as they were on standard gauge and the main line to Adelaide was still broad gauge so seeing the standard gauge diesels was exciting.
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Daily Prompt: Always the Passenger
I don’t drive so I’ve always been a passenger either on public transport or someone’s car.
The best thing about being a passenger in a car is there is always time to look at the scenery. Of course that means that when we are enjoying a scenic drive I have to try to refrain from saying “Look at that!” and “Isn’t that fantastic.” or anything that might distract the driver from the road.
There is a down side of course.Some people might say navigating is one but I don’t really mind being the map reader.
I don’t like being in a car with someone who smokes or talks on a mobile phone while driving, takes both hands off the wheel at the same time or yells at other drivers so sometimes car journeys can be nerve-wracking but on those occasions I grit my teeth and keep quiet. Luckily most of the people I regularly travel with are good drivers and don’t have bad habits.
I always catch the bus when I go to Hobart. The 60 kilometre journey is very scenic and I never get tired of it. If I had to drive I’d have to think about the weather and traffic and the idiotic things that some people do on the roads. On the bus I can let the driver worry about that and enjoy the scenery.
Of course I don’t mind being a passenger on a train or a tram . These are my favourite ways to travel in the city and I have been known to catch a train or tram “just for the ride”.
I enjoy being a passenger on a commuter ferry, lucky people in Sydney who get to do that every day.
For me the biggest downside of being a passenger is the lack of control. When you are the passenger the choice of when to go, where to go and how to get there is not entirely yours. I have to admit that sometimes I’d like to be able to jump in a car and go somewhere by myself but not being able to is something I can live with.
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The Hobart Model Train Show 2016
The Hobart Model Train Show has been a regular outing for me for a good many years. I don’t often miss it. If you have read more than a couple of posts on this blog you will know that railways has been a big part of my family life. Naomi, David and I all worked for the railways at one time, we all loved railway excursions especially on steam engines and we all loved model trains.
On Saturday Naomi and I made the trip to the Tasmanian Transport Museum for this years event.
This year I have focussed more on the scenery than the trains though as I love miniature scenes.
An acquaintance of ours was one of the exhibitors . Historian Peter Fielding from Oatlands has a display every year. His models are usually based on scenes from World War One and are always incredibly detailed for such tiny things. Peter likes to educate and entertain the many children that come to see the trains so he usually sets up some funny little scenes for them to find in his diorama. This year his scene was “The Desert War 1916-1918” . We thought it was the best display he’s done.
Most of this years layouts had terrific scenery and we thought that the backdrops were particularly well done as well. This one reminded me of the sort of scenery that I’d see when we travelled around by train when I was a child in England. Naomi said it reminded her of “Coronation Street”.
This was part of a very pretty little railway set in the Welsh countryside.
The scene below I edited very slightly. I thought that the painted industrial buildings in the background were very well done. I just removed a line where two panels had been joined together which was a bit distracting.
Both Naomi and I have fond memories of Hornby trains from our childhood. I had a station and platform that looked a lot like the one in the picture on the left. These two photos are of a Triang Hornby railway circa 1955. My Horny train set was from about 1963-4
A Triang Honby model railway.
Above is a clockwork train set. The buildings are all biscuit and tea tins but they fit in really well.
There were also some larger miniature steam locomotives and two full-sized ones in steam, one giving rides up and down a stretch of track inside the museum. Of course it was impossible not to think of David as we attended so many of these things together. He would have been fascinated to see locomotive C22 which we had not seen in steam on previous visits. Here is one last photo that I took of David at the 2014 show, the last one he attended with me.
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Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge – Tracks and Trains
Tracks and Trains
This is a subject that is right up my alley as I’ve been taking pictures of trains almost since I first picked up a camera. Here in Tasmania it is a bit of a challenge as we have no passenger railways and only a few freight trains. There are a couple of railway museums and tourist railways though. This first picture was taken in 2014. David and I were driving up to Oatlands in the mid north to visit Naomi and as we headed up the main road out of Hobart we were held up by a freight train at a level crossing. We didn’t often get a chance to photograph them so as we knew we’d get to the Derwent river crossing before the train we decided to stop and wait for it. We did so and then went a little way ahead of it to take a few more before continuing our journey. As it turned out that was the last time we did railway photography together.
These next two photographs are not good quality, they are scans of old prints. The first one is a photo that David took. He was working in the old railway yards which no longer exist. The small blue timber building in the photo to the left of the diesel was his office. He often took pictures of trains and buildings which seemed odd to me at the time. I used to ask him why he took them and he said that one day they might not be around any more. Well, he was right, they are gone now. About ten years later I worked in that yard myself, David was working elsewhere by then. I too photographed the trains and the people in my workplace. My photo was taken when I was on night shift, usually the best time as the big bosses had all gone home. I took this photo of one of the railcars being serviced during my break.
South Australian Railways diesel in the Adelaide rail yard. Photo David Jensen between 1977-81
Diesel railcar in the Adelaide Railcar Depot sometime between 1987-98.
This is another old one. I can tell from the headboard that it was taken in 1988. As part of the celebrations for 200 years of European settlement of Australia this steam engine from New South Wales ran all the way across Australia. Of course we went to see it in Adelaide and were lucky enough to take a trip behind it.
As I’m writing this post there is a railway program on television. “Joanna Lumley’s Trans- Siberian”. This reminds me to include a photo of a Russian electric locomotive taken when we made that journey in 1990. This was taken out of the train window.
This last one was taken in Queenstown, Tasmania in 2012 at the West Coast Wilderness Railway. David and I had driven there to spend the weekend with our friends Gillian and Bruce who had come from Melbourne.
As you can see trains have always been a big part of my life. I met David on a steam train trip, he proposed to me on one and trains were also part of our wedding. Needless to say I will never think of trains now without thinking of him as well.
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Sydney Trains – Now and Then
This afternoon I spent some time scanning all the photos from our 1985 holiday. I’ve already shared some pictures of Uluru and Kata Tjuta.
After we returned from Alice Springs on the Ghan we went to Sydney for a few days. I really enjoyed looking at the old photos again but it also made me think about the subject matter of our photographs.
Our choice of subjects has not changed a lot over the years and so I discovered that I had a couple of “now and then” pictures. The angles are not the same but here are two photos of Sydney’s St James Station. One from 1985 and one from 2012. The Chateau Tanunda signage is still in place above the stairs but I miss the news stand. I think that Hubby probably took the 1985 photo as it was taken with a 35mm camera and as I explained previously I was using my Instamatic for most of that holiday. I didn’t particularly like the old Paxette so David used it. It was after that trip that we bought our first Zenit EM.
We can’t resist taking pictures at railway stations. Look at these two taken at Sydney’s Central Station.
I will be looking through our old photos for more “Now and Then” pictures in future. Maybe you have some as well!
