The South Coast line is nowadays electrified to Kiama, although the Southern Highlands line remains non-electrified. Non-airconditioned carriages have been withdrawn, and 44 class locomotives are mostly withdrawn and, apart from heritage tours, none have been used to haul passenger trains for many years.
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Note that all the carriages retain their original push-up windows, probably not as common then as the much hated Beclawat windows were becoming common by that time.
Since this photo was taken, locomotive hauled trains have been replaced by either electric multiple unit or diesel multiple unit trains.
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Today's historic photo of the day: Exactly 40 years ago today, a 44 class diesel hauls a #train of non air-conditioned cars away from Central Station, Sydney, February 2 1985.
This train, which appears to include a motley collection of FS, MCE and related cars painted in Indian red and Candy liveries would have been headed for either the South Coast Line or the Southern Highlands line. This was before electrification had reached Wollongong so all trains down that way were diesel hauled.
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This section of track in Moreland Road Brunswick remains in service and today and carries route 6 trams as well as providing access to Brunswick Depot for route 19 trams running along Sydney Road. You can see the Sydney Road intersection in the background of this shot.
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Whilst successful, no further W2s were converted, the remaining W2s lived out their lives in original open-centred state, and 644 became a bit of an oddity. The conversion did however extend 644's operating life, and she remained in regular service until late 1987, just six weeks or so after this photo was taken, making it one of the last trams from the W2 family in service. After withdrawal she was loaned to the Tramway Museum Society of Victoria, and she is still at the Bylands museum today.
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Conversion of 644 from W2 to SW2 in 1953, some 15 years after the conversion of the original four, was to be the prototype for the conversion of the entire W2 class fleet to match the standards of comfort offered by enclosed saloons on newer trams. However, only two W2s were converted; 644 in 1953 and 275 in 1955.
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No 644's history however is a bit different to most other W2s. Built in 1930, she ran as a standard W2 until damaged in a collision in 1953. She was then re-built as an SW2, which involved removal of the narrow centre door, and fitting of mechanical sliding doors to the remaining two doors on each side of the dropcentre. Four W1 class trams had, in 1938, been converted to SW2 class and their success had led to sliding doors being standard for all new trams starting with the SW6 class in 1938
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Today's historic photo of the day: Just six weeks before her withdrawal, SW2 class #tram no 644 runs a depot-bound trip in Moreland Rd, Brunswick, Vic, October 31 1987.
644 was one of the famous W2 series of trams that, for 60 years from 1927 to 1987 personified Melbourne. They were the most numerous class of tram and were so reliable that they probably are in no small part responsible for the survival of Melbourne's tram network through the decades when so many other cities abandoned trams.
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Whilst this railway line remains open today, and indeed has recently been upgraded as part of the Melbourne to Brisbane Inland Rail project, Peak Hill station building no longer stands on its original site. It was re-located some years ago to the nearby Lindner Oval sporting ground to gain a new lease on life as an amenities block - complete with Peak Hill station nameboard.
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Today's historic photo of the day: Exactly 42 years ago today, an LVR tour #train from Gwabegar and Dubbo on its return to Sydney via Parkes passes through the station at Peak Hill, NSW, January 31 1983.
Peak Hill is 498km from Sydney on the cross-country goods-only Parkes to Narromine line. Regular passenger train services were withdrawn from this line and the station closed to passengers in 1974.
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Today, this line is known as the Maryvale Paper Mill siding. Regular heavy freight trains hauled by modern main line locos operate direct from the mill to Melbourne. This is in fact the ONLY regular rail freight task that remains in south-eastern Victoria beyond the suburbs of Melbourne.
Whilst many T class have been withdrawn, many do still run. T342 still exists in preservation today and has recently been restored to operational condition.
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When this pic was taken, VLine had recently taken over operation of the Maryvale Tramway from APM. Until the mid '80s the mill owned its own locomotives and they ran shunt trains between the mill and the exchange sidings on the VR main line where wagons would be attached and dropped from VR freight trains. However by the time this photo was taken, VR diesels ran the trains on this line to the exchange sidings in the distance where mainline electric locos took over for the journey to Melbourne.
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Victorian Railways T class locomotives were the most numerous class of diesel locomotive in the State- 94 were built between 1955 and 1968. The sub-types varied significantly in mechanics and external appearance, but they were all Bo-Bo branchline diesels. T342 was a member of the first tranche of 27, delivered in 1955 and 1956. These first 27 T class were commonly known as a 'flat-tops' because, well.....
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Today's historic photo of the day: VLine diesel loco T342 in its original Victorian #Railways blue & gold livery travels light engine along the broad gauge Maryvale Tramway towards the APM paper mill near the Traralgon West Road overbridge, Maryvale, Victoria, December 29 1986.
Maryvale is about 150km east of Melbourne, just north-east of Morwell. The Maryvale Tramway branches off the Melbourne to Bairnsdale main line just east of Morwell and runs north for about 6km to the Maryvale paper mill
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In 1984, both branch lines were still open, however no trains had run on the Holbrook branch since 1978, and no trains were to run there again. The Corowa branch was still in use for goods though, and this photo was taken from a special tour train which was on its way to Corowa
The last train to Corowa ran four years after this in 1988. Culcairn today remains open as a main line station that sees many passing goods trains and is served by the twice daily XPT trains between Sydney and Melbourne
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Today's historic photo of the day: Exactly 41 years ago today, we see the #railway station at Culcairn, NSW, January 29 1984.
Culcairn is in the Riverina region of southern NSW, 596km from Sydney and 355km from Melbourne on the main Sydney to Melbourne railway. It was once the junction for two branch lines; one to Holbrook and the other to Corowa. The station nameboard visible here once had additional text below the station name that read "Change here for Corowa and Holbrook lines".
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These peak hour extras were withdrawn just after this photo was taken and replaced by shuttles from Domain Rd up William Street. The only route that nowadays runs along William Street (and this short section in Market Street) is the crosstown route 58 between Toorak and West Coburg.
W class trams no longer operate regular services, however a handful have been retained and re-built to operate the tourist oriented City Circle route. Tram 834 has however been withdrawn and stored.
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Today's historic photo of the day: SW5 class #tram 834 running an un-numbered Camberwell Junction short working of the former peak hours-only William Street to Camberwell route 32 at Flinders St in Market St, Melbourne, October 29, 1986.
Route 32 was one of a handful of weekday peak hours routes from William St to the south-eastern suburbs. Most trams from these destinations run along Swanston St, but these peak hour services brought commuters to the western end of the city along William St.
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This photo was from the very first roll of film I shot on the first day I used my first SLR camera. Until that point, I had been using a compact pocket camera (an Olympus XA2). But at the start of 1985 I splashed out on a Minolta X300 SLR.
This first roll, for some reason I can't explain, was black and white negative film, and I took an equivalent colour slide shot with my Olympus to calibrate. Thereafter I fed Kodachrome slide film into my Minolta, and the rest is history.
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The line remained in use for goods for only a very short while longer, but operations ceased altogether after serious flooding in 1984. So, whilst this photo was taken just 14 months after the last passenger train ran, by this stage no trains were running.
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