Railfans

[Dale]

Ok after a billion attempts at trying to find a topic for rail enthusiasts, I gave up and kicked this one in the guts.
Seems there are a few out there that share the passion for steel upon steel, so use this as a point of discussion.

Lurking about for ages, JG is clued up onto his rail business.. well done, I too have done stints of locomotive driving in Australia with the now defunct Australian National running the mainline 3000+hp diesels and the little alcos in between, primarily on the trunk routes out of Adelaide..

Just a start, once in your blood.. diesel, steam or electric, what is your vice?
Mine is sanding the tracks all the way up to notch 8 light engine only.. 120 tons of metal propelled to the same speed very quickly

[Michael]

Yes i like trains,remembered the DAS and DSBs from the past and even remember seeing steam engines long time ago before I went to school,they were brown,grey or a mix of grime then.Any railways stuff is interesting.
Get railfan magazine each 3 months and when the railscene dvds are cheap.Das in N.Z in notch 8 and slipping were the best to listen too,nice and noisy,the better.
Listening to over tonnage locomotives with heavy wagons screaming on a rainy day was like listening to music echoing in the hills

[Tornado Tim]

Strangely enough I like trains too, hahaha.
Model trains are the best.

[ricky]

I like trains too, well actually most things mechanical or transport related
I had a fascination with UK Deltics for a while after watching lots of youtube clips of them, now they are a fascinating engine! Saw some good derailments in the Napier shunting yards when i was a kid too.. and Napier had a pretty cool model Railway

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Just a start, once in your blood.. diesel, steam or electric, what is your vice?
Mine is sanding the tracks all the way up to notch 8 light engine only.. 120 tons of metal propelled to the same speed very quickly

the serviceing crews would be very happy with you, using all the sand up


I used to like the sound of the old DGs, or 'Hogs' as I used to call them,especially under a full load. Even with only 750hp, they seemed to pull. not like the DJs which used to run in tamdom with them, they slipped quite often.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Michael]

Did the Dgs have 10 notches instead of 8?
Never seen a Dg in real life,I think di s had 10 knotchs were EE motors like Dgs.Dgs were ugly when they recabbed them in the late 70s before then thetre were pretty.Chch has the only EE Df at ferrymead?
We were brought up with Das most of my school years until Dxs arrived.

[Dale]

Yes the guys at the Motive Power Centre in Adelaide used to cringe everytime we would pull in as it would invariably lead to a sand-up.. the old excuse wore thin after a while, which was millipedes on the tracks while climbing up the hills. True enough tho they were and still are a major issue in winter but I still got tagged with the "sandman" nickname.

Love being up here on the hill looking down over the N.I. Trunk & all the traffic heading past, only a few minutes ago there were a couple of locos doing a dynamic brake test, talk about a bloody racket!
Im admittedly not very clued up on the NZ loco classes but have been doing some research & lots of photography being in the location I am.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Dynamc brake tests used to be a curse with the fitters as they always wanted a trial out to Rolleston just before knock-off time
I think nowdays they do their own testing.
Dgs had 10 notches, Michael, so did the Di. I never worked on the Dis as they were transferred north when I started the railways and when they came back down to the South Island, they worked around the Dunedin area.
I just worked on the Djs mainly until the DFs arrived and the Dx's and their subsequent modificated locos until I finished in 1996.
I do have the honour of driving the last train out of Methven in 1976.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Michael]

What were they DFTs? I dont know much about Australian ones never spent more than 10 days ever there in 1 trip.Guess the had GM ones like us the 1500 class.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

DFTs were just turbo-charged Dfs, or modified Dfs. For me, they seemed to not have much more grunt than their predecessors.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Michael]

Can tell the diffrence in the sound,they hum(DFTS) in n8 rather than cackle.Dxs would be better than dfts,DFs sounded ok but were a bit too quiet after the sound of the Da and even Dx.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I never worked in the North Island so I don't know how the Da locos sounded but they were quite barky to my knowledge and needed mufflers fitted as they were too noisy in some areas.
I think there is a Da restored in it's origional livery and KiwiRail use it on the odd occasion.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Michael]

Yes i been in a DA on the westere 1/35 many moons ago and they whine and growl and hear the tripping of the alternators on wheel slip the whole way.a sound never forgotten.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

tripping of the alternators on wheel slip the whole way.a sound never forgotten.

GR problems,sounding by that.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Dale]

Guess the had GM ones like us the 1500 class.

The majority of the Aussie mainline machines are all GM-EMD's.. had to read you post carefully as I wasnt sure if you were talking about the "GM" class in particular, the old bulldog style ones produced from 1951 onwards. 3 series of them, first lot were just 4 motors with 1500hp, 2nd were Co-Co re-engined with 1950hp blocks and the last few in the series were fitted with dynamic braking.

Only a handful of classes running on the mainland over there are Goninan/Alco builds.. no offence but I cannot stand them, totally unresponsive to throttle controls even with the newer ones, as opposed to the Clyde Engineering EMD's.

[Michael]

Our diesels we got the bo bo DE class 15 of them from EE about 1951-52,they were about 660hp off memory and were heavy shunters.then the DF came 10 of those then 42 dg/dh types.GM supplied in various batches the Das A1A A1A which the 1st 30 had old controls was a big feature then clyde Australia gave us 10 Australian ones then up to 1967 we got in total 145 Das then the Dis arrived Co co wheels in 1966 then they wanted to phase the kbs and abs and js in the SI and bought Djs there.

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Apparently they wanted to buy more Di locos for the South Island but the World Bank said the NZR should buy the Mitsubishi Dj locos instead as they were cheaper.
Dj locos were down-rated in later years to only have 9 Notches owing to water-heating problems, so probably they were better off to buy the Di. in the first place.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Michael]

The di was chosen for its low axle load.The Dis looked nicer locos.Did you drive/fire steam John?
Dale how good is your railway view can you hear them any wind direction?

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

Did you drive/fire steam John?

No, although I did sit my boiler exam for just incaseness as steam was on it's last legs when I joined the NZR.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Dale]

If there is a northerly blowing I can hear them powering up out of Drury, drop out of range as they go behind the hill next to me then slug it up the big hill before coasting back through Paerata, nearly derail at the switchpoint to Glenbrook (Mission Bush) & into Pukke.. on a crystal clear night with no wind you can hear everything for a good 15 or so minutes before one comes through. To stand on my front lawn I look across the road & the neighbours paddock & see the lot, a much better view is obtained by standing over the road itself but to photograph I would need decent piece of glass for the camera.. something I dont have right at the moment :\

Love the little Maxx push-pull units running down here, have to admit the DC are one of the few I can recognize, look very striking in Maxx blue as opposed to the old candy and corncob liverys going on here.

[Michael]

if its a NE here we can hear them going up thru Takanini onto Homai.DC4916 has a distictive sound to it,can hear it before seeing which one it is.As for aeroplanes(know little about them) probably ot here when its a SW the planes whine and glide in but if its a NE they growl higher up and if its a humdinger N or NW ,When the cloud are moving fast they come really low down and growl across the sky quick.

[Dale]

Aviation is another fav of mine & another bonus living up here as the general southern approach path takes everything right overhead at a few thousand feet.. only when they are landing on runway 23L & on short finals. Got a clear view shot out to the airport & on the rare occasion there is nigh a breath of wind in the morning, you can hear the thrust reversers kick in upon landing. Even better when you are out at Clarkes Beach on same said mornings..

Perhaps another topic needed
Is that DC loco the one that sounds like the manifold has blown off it?

[NZ Thunderstorm Soc]

I remember driving 4916 down here in Christchurch. It was rather dirty loco.

JohnGaul
NZThS

[Michael]

The 49xx locos were the old 145x series Das they were originally done in hutt,they had the old 567 engines,but eventually got the 645 ones,correct me if the timing isnt right but they kept some of the da features wheres the others went to Australia for rebuilds,I think thes were done about 1983.
Please start an aviation one as well as I think theres some south islanders who see the Wanaka pagent when its on.

[Thunder]

They had trains to Methven? Why?

Is the track still there or did they rip it all up?

Cheers
Aaron