18/11/2008 - Trials
Today 1105 and sister loco 1101 headed out for some brief trials. All went well and the loco will soon be presented for final registration. Here are some pics from the day. Note that 1105 drum head logo is still not complete.
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16/11/2008 - Painted!
Here is a preliminary shot of 1105, coupled to 1101 on completion of the most of the paint work. Sure, the cosmetics aren't quite complete - you'll notice that the steps aren't done yet, nor are the short end doors back on yet. However, the rest of the loco is now ready to head out on some trials with its sister loco during the week of 18 November.
The drumhead logo is wrong too. Sign writer permitting, this will be corrected tomorrow. There will be less blue surrounding the croc's head, and the wings will either be removed, or made proportional to the drumhead.
With any luck, if it comes up looking okay, 1101 will lose the hatching on the ends of each hood and be similarly adorned with the croc.
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6/10/2008 - Coming Soon - New Livery
Progress has been slow and steady. Mechanically, the loco is now as close to perfect as age will allow. All that remains to complete is the final paint job. Here is the 1105 undercoated. New livery should be applied by the end of the week, pending lack of interruptions.
Watch this space
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14/6/2008 - 1105 - A progress report
I've decided to keep this rolling, and report on stuff we get up to in our small rail organisation.
It's been a fortnight since I reported on the delivery of 1105 . Here is some background on the loco and some progress that has been made to date in returning this locomotive to mainline service.
It might be fair to say that we were not particularly happy with some of the work that the previous owner did in converting the loco from Vacuum to Air Brakes. This might not please any members of the previous owners organisation who happen to read this, but I am not here to pander to ego's.
Firstly, they converted an exhauster to run as a compressor, but choose, or could not, install intercoolers in the newly created first stage of the compressor. This caused to the converted machine to run under some duress, as evidenced by the amount of 'tar' that was found in the air system piping. This is caused by excessively hot oil vapourising during compression, and possibly even 'dieseling' when such vapours combust in the compression chamber. The vapours or combustion by-products condense as a sticky tarry residue in your pipes, or worse, some components.
This probably contributed to a compressor failure while the loco was in Mackay. This was rebuilt using parts from a 73 class loco stored at a local sugar mill, and importantly, saw the installation of stage intercoolers. Another job done at Mackay was to remove all the malleable iron fittings off the conversion job, and tidy up the pipework - especially under the brake pedestal. However time did not permit the completion of this work before it arrived in Cairns, so that was another on the to-do list for re-commissioning.
So the first re-commissioning job was to prove the air and brake system before starting the engine. The pipe work was completed a couple of days after arrival. Happily the brakes worked, but the independent release feature did not, due to a gunk filled and nearly siezed IR valve on the distributor. This was replaced. There were plenty of leaks under the desk as well. These components were removed and cleaned - found to be full of tar, water and muddy rust. A magnet valve needed new seats. A moister trap appears to have saved the remainder of the under desk components from the horrors of these deposits further down stream. All eventually was made good on the weekend after arrival of the locomotive. All air system safety valves were also removed, cleaned, tested and set.
At 1600 on Saturday 7 July, the engine was started for the first time in Cairns. To ensure an easy start, the injectors were cracked and fully bled free of air. 1105 starts much easier than sister loco 1101 - which makes me think that a top end tune is due on the latter engine.
The engine ticks over nicely, and quietly. However we could not get the transmission out of reverse. At this stage air was being supplied by air from either 1101, or the shed, as we had not put the belts on the compressor at this stage.
This was tracked down to a magnet valve that for some reason would not deliver air from the way it was installed. This was fixed by turning the valve around. Transmission and drive system now fully functional.
Another minor win was getting the vigilance system working again. However the previous owner had removed the brake pipe solenoid valve, and blanked the resulting hole. How were they allowed to run it on the suburban network like that??? A new valve needs to be sources before mainline working here.
On finally running the compressor, the first stage safety's kept lifting as soon as it was started. Lucky the reliefs were serviced eh? Turned out the second stage head was put on 180 degree's out of alignment, so this should be sorted easily enough. Next week job.
There is still a fair list of tidy up jobs to complete, but she is not far off going for a run around Cairns to perform a basic set of engineering trials, prior to applying for registration transfer. We have until October to complete this as it appears that both loco's will be going out on hire for a few months.
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30/5/2008 - Meanwhile, Back in Cairns
A week after loading and we are back in Cairns.
1102 was dropped off at Mackay a day early on Tuesday 27 May. 1105 which was already on site at Mackay was lifted and placed on the road transport, which later continued on to Cairns. Below we see the truck reversing into the CKS depot for unloading.
The unloading took place without incident, save for the fact that the cranes were over an hour late. On the following day, resident Cairns locomotive 1101 was coupled to 05 and moved to its stowage siding. The pair of loco's are recorded below because soon, 1105 will lose its BR livery, and be painted in the Black CKS livery, with out the hatching at each end I am at pains to add. Note that 1101 will also lose the hatching.
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22/5/2008 - Mission Accomplished
Tonight I am parked in net enabled hotel room in Launceston, having completed a day where the loco lift was successfully completed. Although a pair of 50 tonne cranes was ordered, a single 160 tonner showed up, but managed to do the lift solo without any hassles.
1102 as I type will be in the ship heading across Bass Strait.
I'll let pictures do the talking and add some more obscure observations from the trip later in this blog.
Y Class comes clattering up to shunt to loco to the lifting position
For the EE foamers... a small Bo Bo Y class comes to move the loco's from their siding of the past few years. It was a good sign that they moved at all.
1102, 1104 are moved from the siding. The Y class is 2150
With 1104 in the way, it was included in the shunt. The loco's are hauled clear of points. This is the Burnie turning angle
Daylight appears under the loco as it is lifted
On the hooks with the truck being backed beneath it
During the lift, an ore train came into Burnie Yard. This work was what the 11's were designed for. I had to grab a pic of the train entering they yard:
A "west coast" Train
A few of the locals, including some railpage people were photographing some of their rail history departing there shores. My spin is that these loco's are returning to their place of birth.
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21/5/2008 - Burnie loco and the Induction process
Today it was over to the PN depot in Burnie to fulfil site induction formalities. It doesn't matter that I am already an approved PN Contractor (I drive and repair their trains FFS) but process is process and it had to be followed through. So an hour and half later we were finally free to do the site preps to lift our loco onto road transport.
The Burnie depot used to be the headquarters of the Emu Bay Railway - history will record this railway as being one of the more successful private railway's in this country - not that they ever made much money. I guess the length of time it survived gives it this mantle. But it was absorbed into ATN Tasrail and thereafter Pacific National Tasmania, and the place is greatly rationalised. Many other businesses now occupy the old EBR workshops, and the status of the place is now more or less a running shed for the West Coast workings.
To the QR EE foamers, the MKA's were sighted here in abundance (abundance being relative to the overall Tasmanian Railway scene - which is depressing) and you will be happy to know they are as equally despised by their new operators (as opposed to manangement) as they were in QLD. Oh.. and they still look fucked too! Depressing: A container freigh arrived from Hobard overnight. It had three wagons on it.. and not three pak ones either - just three single platform container flats. And three loco's on the front! Its all doomed I tell ya!
I digress
When 1101 made its way out of Tassie all those years ago, we needed to remove cow catchers, steps and couplers to get the load on the truck properly. We have since improved our process and haulage contractor and no longer need to do this. On the other hand, Curtain brothers, who bought the remaining loco's, used our original hauler and had to do the removal thing. Trouble is, the people who did their bits removal were a little too efficient, and they did ours too. In fact the bits they took off (which includes a derailer bar behind the cow catcher) are absolutely required as part of the way we load the engine onto the truck.
These things are heavy - and we had to put them back on our loco before tomorrows lift. Part of the efficient removal process was to blow the bolts off with oxy - but there was a bolt shop across the road which allowed us a method of re-attaching the bits (no chance of bludging a bolt of PN!) - we did manage to scrounge a forklift to assist us in the replacement process however. By lunchtime this was knocked over (must remember to tighten the bolts up tomorrow after pinching a shifter) - and the rest of the day was trying to scrounge, steal or generally aquire other useful bits and pieces. Curtain brothers appear to have beaten us to it all unfortunately.
Will let you know how things went tomorrow.
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21/5/2008 - Look out Tassie: We've arrived!
Sorry but this will be a text only version for now - a later entry will be mostly pictorial. This is because my Burnie accommodation is meant to have wireless net access. And it does - in that my laptop and happily connect with their wireless router. But that router is not connected to the net. Reception said it's an issue Telstra are trying to resolve, which I have mentally translated to mean that I won't be getting online while here in Burnie - from my motel room anyway. So I'll just drop a quick update from the 'online access centre' across the road from said lodgings.
Flight down was unevetful enough, but chewed up plenty of hours in the act of getting to the Tasmanian Desitination. At Cairns airport by 5 am, flight away by 6 am and two hours to Brisbane. Had a two and a bit hour wait in Brisbane, where I met up with my companion for this trip, the rarely sighted (on WoS at least) fordps from Mackay. Another 2 hour flight from Brisbane to Melbourne where we had another three hour layover before boarding out connecting flight to Launceston. A short hop over the Tasman and then into a hire car for the 144 km run to Burnie, and the end of the first day's travelling. Arrival here was at 6 pm - 13 hours after the start of the day. Hmmm travel is done in work time.. I should be putting in for over time for this (except I'm on salary! )
In Melbourne, Trampanto dropped in quickly between knocking off work and heading to a medical appointment which was damned nice of her. She also got a chance to meet fordy, which gets down to the crux of the reason she visited I suspect... to bludge a nights accommodation on her forthcoming motor cycle epic to Cairns. Turns out that her uncle and Fordy are great mates. Small world.
Our pub has been forgiven for not having working internet by the fact that it has an excellent Irish bar attached. We met up with our local contact who shouted us beers during his meeting with us. So now I am nervous about his invoice. He also planted the seed of an idea whereby you start at one end of the bar and 'work the taps' - have a glass from everything on offer at the bar. Could be dangerous. I think there are 13 of them one of which is bundy. Might have a go tonight!
So endeth day one.
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19/5/2008 - Lookout Tassie.. We're coming back!
In 2007, a visit to Tasmania was made to scope out what was required to relocate a locomotive we had purchased, across the Tasman to its new future home in Queensland. Also chased up some spares and other handy info association with keeping it running once it got running again. The idea was to get the loco moved in the next couple of months. So its fifteen months later and its finally going to happen.
this is the loco in Burnie last year
Last year we were greeting by a sad looking 1102 that had been belted by a crane in the yard. Damage not too bad, just superficial.
Anyway, I have reactivated this blog to record the journey of 1102, and anything else of interest that happens during the trip
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4/2/2007 - Final Instalment - Mikes Tassie Adventure
As noted in on the Ballyhooley Forums the final instalment of this saga was to be moved to the members only area of the forums. At the time of writing there was a DNS issue with the site and consequently it was down. I have always wanted to do a "blog" so this page was created to get the story online. By the time you read this you will have followed the link from the forum on the fixed site.
Pete and I left Launceston on the Australia Day Public holiday and landed in Melbourne at about 2 pm. A quick run down the tulla freeway, had us at Melbournes magnificent Southern Cross Station 20 minutes after boarding the bus. After peace and quite of regional Tasmania, Melbourne was absolutely alive and vibrant with the masses enjoying the holiday festivities. Waiting for our train to Seymour, killed an hour wandering around southbank and the crown casino before joining a single car sprinter service for the run north. I also amused myself taking photo's of the new v/line velocities which has the same road number as our 11 class loco's (1101, 1102, 1105 + one of 1107 cos it was there  .
V/line v/locity 1102 - a bit newer than our "1102"
On arrival at Seymour we met a bloke I joined the Navy with (all those years ago) who now works at the depot. We chucked our bags in our accommodation for the night (vintage VR sleeping cars).
I never had the pleasure of actually travelling in these wonderful old cars when they were in normal service, so it was great to experience them in this way. After that Pete and I did our "shopping run" and were escorted around by the president of the society (which was fortunate for their stores holdings) Looks like we got onto some couplers for 1400.
corridor on the sleeping car
The reason for our stop over at Seymour was to ride the "Bairnsdale Blue Train" that was advertised on failpage. This train was made up of two of Seymours ex VR "T" class loco's (the 1st Series of these are the same as our 1400 from the frame up), four ex Spirit of Progress blue passenger cars, crew car "mitta mitta" and state parlour car no 4 which has a viewing deck on the rear - to a smaller scale as what was on the "guiseppi"
So nice and early next morning it over to the station to pick up the train. The first of the gunzels were also circling the end of the platform with their tripods, camera's and huge lenses! By the time the train got away, it contained a fair collection of this type of speciment displaying a bewildering array of excitement and intense pleasure being amongst their trains. I thought my work colleagues and even Peter displayed some alarming gunzelly traits but they are nearly indifferent to the passing of a train compared to this mob.
First up there was the young ones who were probably still insecure with the gunzuality, and tended to hunt in packs. Probably failpage moderators  . The look of ecstacy that eminated from their faces when in sight of other trains or railway stuff had to be seen to be believe. But lets not be too hard on them - they are the next generation of enthusiests that will keep our heritage societies alive. We also had the pleasure of listening to several railway experts who could tell us volumes about the ills of the new victorian high speed trains, only to complete the diatribe with an acknowelgement that he had never actaully ridden in one. There was the "my camera has right of way" type that would impatiently wave you out of shot while glaring at your impertinence to be between his camera and the train. Fair enough at a photo shoot - but this was happening on crowded platforms. Trackside there was plenty happening with the 'caders' at pretty well every prominent spot along the way - some even complete with anoracks! There were some that could have possibly been let out of some local institution for a days train ride - where they could happily blend in and hardly be noticed. One particularly crazed (male) individual even had a pair of ladies sensible shoes on. There were those scribbling every number to hand into their note books, while another was photographing every number on the train, even the maintenance recordings on the sole bar. The whole range of autism spectrum disorder was on display - and note - this is not derogatory because my son has a form of autism.... its just that I can spot it!
The trip itself was really good, especially with the history of the old spirit cars, the parlour car, and the pair of clydes chortling up the front. However, despite being on excellent track, the train was held to 80 kph running because of the old wooden car on the back. And after a while you got a bit overwelmed by the extreme enthusiasm. During a cross at sale, (we had to de-train so they could shunt our train out) I checked out a timetable and noted that we could depart Bairnsdale on a regular V/Line service 3/4 of an hour before the heritage train was due to depart, and get into Melbourne 2.5 hours ahead of it. Upon arrival at Bairnsdale the tickets were duly booked for the 4.30 melbourne service.
Our train being put away in a siding to cross a scheduled service
This was a remarkably enjoyable run back. It was quick, with 115 km running being a loco hauled train, and we were with "normal" comuters. The vic government has spent plenty of money upgrading services and frequencies - not to mention the regional fast rail project, and you have to say its not doing too badly. There was plenty of patronage on the train for its run. It was especially pleasing to see people use it to travel between minor towns along the way. Another thing was good to see (which we don't see to often in Far North QLD) is passing traffic doing 110 km on the adjacent highway.
The v/line service arriving in Bairnsdale.
8.30 arrival in Melbourne = plenty of daylight left so we checked into our hotel and did a lap around town on a couple of trams. Had a feed at the (fairly) new docklands area which meant that to get home we had to walk past southern cross station. Coming back from dinner, we walked past the telstra dome and over the top of the station. Timing was beautiful because the heritage train was just pulling out - with plenty of walls to echo off, the clydes sounded magnificent!
We were on a plane home early next day - which pretty well ends this report.
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About Me
This insignificant little blog is a small window through which you might be able to view the workings of an even more insignificant tiny private railway, operating the remote Far North of Queensland
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