Railfans

[Michael]

Yes there was article in a recent railfan about the methven line,yes its all gone,many secondary lines all around the country have been ripped out since the late 50s because the government wanted to save money on lines that made a loss.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

No evidence of the Methven line now days except for remnants of a bridge about 3 kms up from Rakaia on Thompson's Track.

Here's a photo of the last train arriving into Methven.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Dale]

So who are these pack of wankers known as "Ontrack"?
Shame they dont have their heads screwed on, I have spent the last hour and a half down at the Paerata level crossing doing traffic control after some tool in his truck wiped out the boom gate and thenone of the trains wasted it completely & spun the lights completely off their footings tearing out the wires in process.. result?

Traffic mayhem.

Finally 2 guys rocked up but they might as well have pissed off completely as they could barely speak a word of english, I ended up ringing locotrol to tell anything coming from drury or pukke to proceed low speed, even the cops after called numerous times for traffic control never showed up, this is the same crossing where that kid was kill a year or so back.

F*cken hopeless.. i have better things to do with my day.

[Michael]

Its called cheap labour they been doing this for about the past 10 years All industries.Most have gone to Australia that were once here.

[Dale]

f'in disgusting to say the least, hence me getting out of the industry to begin with.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

f'in disgusting to say the least, hence me getting out of the industry to begin with.

Nothing much has changed then, Dale, that's why I got out of it 13 years ago

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Michael]

It would be an ecxiting job though you have to have your wits about it the whole time and the exams are pretty hard,signals,brakes etc,been interested in rail living next to a railway line for my 1st 20 years of my life.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

It would be an ecxiting job though you have to have your wits about it the whole time and the exams are pretty hard,signals,brakes etc,been interested in rail living next to a railway line for my 1st 20 years of my life.

Signals were OK but learning about the Westinghouse brake system was a bit hard, also electrical circuits if one wasn't such inclined.
If things packed up anyway, you weren't allowed to touch and had to call in qualified experts, ie. the fitting staff, so lot of study was a waste of time, really.
But then you used common sense. I remember placing a pen in a continually tripping contact (DJ loco) to keep it open so that you can get home, highly illegal by now day standards,was things that you did. Thank goodness the Road Foreman wasn't around.


JohnGaul
NZThS

[Dale]

Wabco's were easy enough to deal with after time.. having wrecks pushed onto the tracks in front of you were a bit different.
Specially when you were a loaded freight.. stop to clear wreck, behind you some unfriendly folk pilfering the load. Tyre irons came in handy in the cab of the CL class locos working over the nullabor.. not that we needed them for the locos

List goes on..

[Dale]

Oh yeah the Ghan.. didnt get its name from the Afghan Cameleers as spoken about, well it did but thundering through the night up front and you have a camel lit up in your sights and nowhere to go except straight ahead on the 5 chime.. not a pretty outcome at the end of the day.

Less prettier when youre re-attaching air & electrics with zip ties, band-aids and bits of stickytape just to get going again, in reverse to try wedge a 1ton camel out from under the cowcatcher..

The paperwork and incompetent dickheads running certain aspects drove me to leaving rail, the memories remain.

[Michael]

n.z sounds a more intesting place for work with locos,perhaps the more dulating country,thus getting them to work harder,did you try Dale to work here doing that?

[Dale]

Yeah I did apply Michael, was also accepted and went in for all the formals and medicals etc but right at the very last second declined the job for personal reasons. No great loss.
Not wrong about punishing terrain here, also sucks that the place is 1067mm with infastructure almost as old as the country itself, need some heavy duty horses here. Again, cant help the fact the tracking wont handle such high axle loaads.

Reason why Queensland Rail shipped a lot of their excess motive power to UnZud.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Not wrong about punishing terrain here, also sucks that the place is 1067mm with infastructure almost as old as the country itself, need some heavy duty horses here. Again, cant help the fact the tracking wont handle such high axle loads.

Reason why Queensland Rail shipped a lot of their excess motive power to UnZud.

Yes those DQ locos.

No problem manouvering a 1100 tonne coal train at 100ks coming down from Springfield as long as the dynamic brake didn't slip. 105ks was the 'trip' where the brakes would come on.
The coal trains now are 2000tonnes with 2 DX locos.
...but as you say with old infastructure. lots of rust in the DX/DC locos and as the cab was over the leading bogies on a DX, really rough as guts to ride in..

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Michael]

You would have to use the train brake too in tandom to keep it stretched.Did the Dgs have 6l brakes or 26 type?
Dsbs were rough riding,ridgid frames and side rods.Still remember the whirring/chugging and wheel slipping sound on as the exaust bellowed out of the funnel of the Dsbs.Rainy days were always exciting then because it added more strain.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

[quote="Michael"]You would have to use the train brake too in tandom to keep it stretched.
Under dynamic braking the train was bunched, the air brake was used to slow the train down, if over a reduction was made, the train would of probably come to a stop if not released at a time to be adjusted with the dymanic brake operation.

Did the Dgs have 6l brakes or 26 type?

The 'Hogs" had the ACEL brakes system whereas the recabbed had the push-button type installed which was OK. Wasn't so noisey in the cab.

Dsbs were rough riding,ridgid frames and side rods.Still remember the whirring/chugging and wheel slipping sound on as the exaust bellowed out of the funnel of the Dsbs.Rainy days were always exciting then because it added more strain.

They were rough riding and the Mitsubishi types were very bangy sounding and if you went around abit of track, curve, that was a bit rough, you could of been thrown out of the seat.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Dale]

Pushed myself to do it, digging through the HDD found a little something.
The Ghan stationed at Alice Springs early 93ish with DL38 and a series 3 GM (dynamic brake equipped) trail, cant remember which one she was. Just pulled in after a long stint through the night.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DL_class
Bit of a rundown on the AT42C's.. 12cyl putting out 3300hp and one of the first fly by wire locos on the network. Dream to drive but pain in the ass when things broke down. Fly by wire, youll understand when you look at the controls of them.

My only experience with the coalies were Leigh Creek to Pt Augusta, 160 wagons, 12,000ton gross with 8000hp up front, general lash-up was a DL, CL and GM.. 1 hour to get her to track speed of 100kmh then once we redlined it, time to power back down for the coast into the Pt.. provided nothing happened along the way

[Michael]

Those look a little like dg's with modified cabs but far more power than 750hp,no running board along the side,they were A1A A1A type.these dls are Co Co so has traction all bogies.Stragly enough were getting beasts called DLs from China.probably for the milk trains Oringi to Hawera.I think 3300hp,about the same as a DXB.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Here's a photo of a Ja in the 'hand' turntable pit at Linwood loco one lovely day in the 1960s.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Michael]

They look bewildered what to do next.

[Dale]

Hiyas!
Been a while between posts, people to do things to see etc.. things I saw the other day left me wondering wtf is going on with kiwirail & cost saving.. in the space of 15 minutes i saw DXR 8007 at the head of a string of flats, albeit a very short one. After a 20 minute layover outside of Pukke she took off, then along followed 2x the dirtiest manifold f***** smoke billowing DC's at the head of a near 1500 long seatainer freight, they didnt stop, they couldnt probably cause theyd need the DXR to run back and haul its ass into gear.


Ok, ive done some motive power movements before, see them regularly here but how the hell can you justify one of the most powerful NZ mainline locomotives running literally 'light' with some dirty old slappers behind busting their wrinkly asses.. i dont get it?
Key has turned around and said start running at a profit or else?
Or else what?

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Interesting point there, Dale.
I saw a train heading away from ChCh with a rake of empty UKs whatever heading south, one morning twixt Islington and Rolleston. The same day around 3pm a Dft came through from Rolleston with another rake of empty UKs heading towards ChCh. Mobile storage I call that. Very profitable train workings

Interesting to read in this morning's PRESS about the MT coal train that overan it's Track Warrant at Reefton.
Apparently, the driver or LE was distracted by conversations with other people in the cab.
What aload of rubbish. Makes a media story. Obviously, he forgot about the instructions on his TW.
Embarrassing as he had officials in his cab rather than other non- railway people he had taken for a ride.
Apparently, it was someone learning the road and the other was possibly a 'Road Foreman' (as we called them in my days on the footplate) . They should of checked the drivers instructions when climbed aboard the loco.

Don't mention it to the media, but I once picked up some hitch-hikers just south of Kaikoura once.They were quite rapt as the were picked up by a train

JohnGaul
NZThS

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Interesting to see the Chunnel trains breaking down under the English Channel because of temperature differences in the tunnel and the outside cold air.
They had to get shunt engines to pull the trains out of the tunnel.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

"Wind speed the anology of a locomotive,Notch(N)..N1 NW,N2 NE,N3 E,N4 W,N5 S,N6 WSW,N7 SSW and finally Notch 8 SW." - Quote

What about Dg and Dj locos? They had 10 notches.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Michael]

"Wind speed the anology of a locomotive,Notch(N)..N1 NW,N2 NE,N3 E,N4 W,N5 S,N6 WSW,N7 SSW and finally Notch 8 SW." - Quote

What about Dg and Dj locos? They had 10 notches.

JohnGaul
NZThS

Well ..for notch 9 it can be a 940 hpa low over the chathams and a 1050 hpa high almost stationary in the tasman just off northland.

Notch 10 can be an ef5 tornado

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

As this is posting 6133, I thought I would dedicate to my favourite DF. sorry no photos

JohnGaul
NZThS