The Moulamein Express
Posted Tuesday 2nd November 2021
Contents
The long and rather lonely railway to Balranald was only completed in 1926, more or less at the end of the era of railway expansion. It ran through rather marginal country (at least until irrigation became established) and didn’t serve any notable centres of population. But its main point of interest was that it was entirely within NSW even though it was always a broad gauge Victorian railway. It was notable in that it was virtually flat — over the 190 km from Barnes (Junction) to Balranald the line fell fairly consistently by only 30 metres. Yet the trip was really quite memorable
Getting there
In 1983 there was a fair bit of work being undertaken to set up train to base radio communications, and it was during that period that we travelled the Balranald line is somewhat unusual circumstances. The actual events leading up to the day, and for that matter who was involved, has now passed into the ‘forgotten’ department but whatever was the case, Ben and I presented at Echuca on the last day of October, well before 08·00, to join a two day outing along the line.
The train was made up of Y162 hauling the Dynamometer Car (in those days Y’s were the only power allowed across the road-rail bridge at Echuca), a somewhat underwhelming load even for the little 750 hp locomotive. An unwillingness to start on the part of 162 meant a 27 minute late start out of Echuca, but after that it all went rather well.
The early part of the day was through lush grain fields.
The plan was to run to Caldwell, back to Womboota, forward to Burraboi, back to Caldwell then forward to Moulamein for the night. It didn’t quite work out that way and in fact we finished up 1009 minutes early into Balranald – something of a record that is rather improbable.
At each place we reversed the loco would run round, which was not always easy on what was then an operating railway. At Burraboi the one and only siding was host to a bunch of GH grain wagons so the run round involved a shunt that momentarily created a yellow mixed train – GH wagons with the Dyno Car trailing.
The mixed train actually only ran from the main line to 2 road at Burraboi.
Testing involved a ground based crew who had a portable radio mast and receivers to measure signal strength. At Womboota we had to calm our impulses and sit for 30 minutes to allow the mobile crew to get established at their next location.
The ‘backward’ run from Burraboi to Caldwell was cut short at Wakool (based on the tests south of there being complete), so from that point onward the timetable was more or less forgotten.
Wakool was an archetypical small country station, apart from the low level platform.
By the time we arrived at Moulamein we were 1½ hours early so since the crew still had plenty of time left we just kept going, which is how we came to arrive at Balranald at 17·32 when the timetable said 10·20 tomorrow.
Returning Home Again
After a night in the local motel we all lined up at Balranald by around 08·00 to make a start at 08·35, although the table of course didn’t even acknowledge we were there, let alone ready to return. Overnight the train had gained a headboard, which we think may have departed with the testing crew a bit later in the day
The Moulamein Express docking up at Balranald.
There was only one test site on the second day, at Impimi 20 km after our morning departure, following which we ran as empty car through to Echuca, although with a couple of freeloaders still aboard.
We had a 25 minute stop at Moulamein (crew meal and safeworking) and short stops at Wakool and Barnes to deal with the staff and ticket (safeworking), to arrive into Echuca at 14·00, 160 minutes ahead of the fairly unambitious timetable. Given that we had more time than we knew what to do with it was not unreasonable that we had a private photo stop at the Edwards River on the way.
A short delay at Edwards River for unexplained reasons.
All up the odd little train ran a total of just over 500 km over the two days, a fairly long distance for a yard goat locomotive in a single run.
