Water Water Everywhere: The Story of Too Much and Too Little
In 1969 NSW introduced a fleet of 20 double-ended box cab locos to their fleet — the 422’s. Being of EMD technology on a mostly ALCO railway, they were more or less dedicated to Southern and Illawarra line working for most of their lives, which of course culminated in running through to Melbourne in the 1980’s.
In 1980 42220 was rebuilt with “super series” adhesion control gear as a demonstrator — it must have had an impact because eighty 81 class locos were ordered soon after. In the meantime, 42220 remained the only moderate power loco anywhere with such equipment. I met up with this loco several times on trains between Melbourne and Sydney (including one occasion when it replaced a failed 42214 on the southbound Aurora at Goulburn) as well as to Kiama and Canberra. But there were two occasions that were not quite normal, and they are the subject of this story.
Widespread rain over the previous few days had been a bit of a minor inconvenience, although it later turned out to be something far more problematic. The Spirit of Progress departing Melbourne on Fri 26 Aug 1983 had 42220 leading 11 cars for 577 tonnes — fairly normal for that time. Departure was near enough to on time and running was OK to Longwood despite meeting opposing trains at Wallan, Broadford and Longwood as well as running through X46 on the Contrans train at Seymour (rather fortuitously as it turned out). We had another meet at Violet Town but in that case, we got waylaid for it, plus had a long 15 km/h TSR over a derailment site north of there, making departure from Benalla 20 minutes down after a triple passenger stop. Another triple stop at Wangaratta cost us a further three minutes, after which we set off with Albury now in our sights — well we did for the next six minutes, until 42220 tossed the towel in with a low water shut down a bit before Bowser. A bit of quick investigation identified the problem as “low water”. Water filled borrow pits and rather over-full streams were all around but here we were stranded for lack of it.
The fireman (I prefer old fashioned terms) had a quick reconnoitre and only then realised that this loco was a one-off in more than one way — the water filler had been moved and, in the dark, no one knew where it now was. As well, by this stage we had realised that even if the fire brigade or any other road help came to the rescue they would be cut off by a lake of water between them and us. Water, water everywhere and we had not enough! 1983 was fairly early days of train radio but it worked, so between us, Train Control and various other players we sorted out a recovery strategy.
X46 (I said it was fortuitous that we overtook it) closed up behind and coupled up. So now we had a nearly 1600 tonne train with a headlight, whistle and brakes at the front and 2000 hp somewhere in the middle, facing a two km stretch of 1 in 75 on the way to Springhurst. 33 minutes after we died, we slowly started off again. It was not particularly fast, in fact my notebook suggests 50 km/h as the maximum (prudent in the light of mid train ‘radio control’) and involved quite a bit of train to train banter.
As we up at the front end headed up the aforementioned grade the speed started to fall away while the actual powering unit was still out in rather more benign country. Clearly the ‘blind’ driver was worried — we were well over the single engine load, and he couldn’t see much ahead of him. As we were approaching the summit, at a speed of 15 km/h and still slowly falling, there was a bit of a concerned call from X46, at which point our man started singing (in a fashion) “nearer my god to thee”. We hope the man with the power got some solace from that; if not presumably he would have shortly afterwards when we topped the summit and the speed slowly started to rise.
It took us 47 minutes to get to Chiltern Loop, roughly double the normal running time, where we were met by T411, while at the same time X53 on the Southern Aurora had closed up behind — now we had four separate trains (in a generous sort of definition) all crewed by Wodonga men who were well known to each other. In a great display of the power of good communication, X46 uncoupled from behind, T411 coupled on the front and the Aurora closed up to a prudent point outside the Loop. In just under eight minutes, we were under way again, this time with all 1000 hp of the T doing something that it was not really designed for. Once over the top of the hill out of Chiltern 411 made the most of things to more or less hold the run times to Albury although I couldn’t have been paying attention so can’t possibly comment on how we managed to achieve that. Arrival there, due at 22·45, was in fact at 00·20 — 95 minutes late. Here 42215 and 4204 came and took the SoP forward — a case of through running being subverted by a through running locomotive going a bit rogue. It might be noted that 4204 was taken off at Junee, whether by design or because it too had become a casualty was never determined.
However, we had not finished with events yet — the opportunity of covering some of the Temora branch lines with AREA on a rail motor outing was what drew us northwards in the first instance. Having been decanted at Cootamundra at 03·50 we had a modicum of sleep, as much as wooden benches and freezing cold would allow. The Aurora, barely seven minutes behind the SoP at this stage, and a couple of freights galloped through, before 4487 duly fronted on the southbound Mail at 05·20. This was the signal for rail motors and buses (it was an intermediate stage of the demise of branch line trains) to leap into action.
We joined DMU set 604/704 for the run to Wyalong Central, along with a number of other voyageurs (including some others doing the same as we were). All went well to Temora where several real passengers left and we waited for a track patrol to report back. We don’t know what they reported but we duly departed, around 20 minutes behind time, for points north.
I have a feeling that this DMU was intended to run the AREA train and the CPH at Wyalong was to run the return normal train, however that was not to be. North of Barmedman the paddocks on the west side of the line were completely flooded, with the various openings under the track struggling valiantly to cope with the volume of water. At least that was the case up to the 544·5 km post (barely 11 km from our intended destination) where the track and several culverts were completely submerged. NSW had a design of culvert that comprised two longitudinal logs supporting the rails with no cross members to hold gauge and this line had a number of them. It was at one of these the driver baulked. If either log had shifted under water the track would be out of gauge and we might become a serious flood casualty.
So, we reversed direction and headed back to Barmedman, arriving there 35 minutes after we first departed the place. A bus was organised and duly arrived around an hour later and was able to ‘swim ‘through the waters (helped by the fact that the railway embankment held back much of the flood) to arrive at Wyalong Central a bit over two hours late. Just as well since the crew for the AREA rail motor were travelling up from Temora with us. There was time to consume part of our rather delayed continental breakfast before the rearranged tour got under way.
Clearly, we were not going to have the scheduled DMU so a couple of station seats were placed in the guards compartment of 6 CPH and that became our conveyance for the day. At something over two hours late we set off for Naradhan, the end of the more westerly branch line in the Wyalong area. Water was everywhere but at least we didn’t encounter anything that threatened our progress. Short stops along the way (including a pause to wait for more flood delayed voyageurs who caught up by car) punctuated the journey. You can almost hear Tom bellowing “hurry, hurry”, “the nearest door is the best door” (pretty much one and the same on a CPH) and something about “a herd of turtles” at each of these stops. Lunch was provided along the way, avoiding the need for an extended stop that may well have been nearer afternoon tea time.
It must have worked — by the time we arrived at Lake Cargelligo we had recovered 20 minutes and picked up a further 20 minutes by cutting the stop there. By the time we arrived back at Wyalong Central we had reduced the deficit to a bit under 80 minutes, although the actual clock time there was still 26 minutes after we should have arrived back at Temora.
A local policeman, whose car headlights were half full of water, kindly informed us that both road and railway were closed due to the flood. Tom, as was his nature, drummed up a bus from Junee which was to find its own way into Wyalong and then find a way to convey us through to Albury. We set up camp in a motel in the interim. Some three hours later, in the midst of a pow wow, the bus arrived. I assume we all had a decent meal during the wait. The previously intended overnight special train from Albury back to Melbourne was annulled, but arrangements were made to occupy the sleeping car when we got to Wodonga (whenever that might be). We finished up departing Wyalong just before 20·00, following the Newell Highway to Ardlethan then cross country to Coolamon and Wagga before heading south to Wodonga. It was around 01·00 Sunday morning before we took up residence in Sleeping Car 9 at Wodonga and for some of us the first opportunity for a bit of horizontal rest for around 40 hours.
Next morning S300 ran the up Albury broad gauge train with us as the lead car. Ironically, we played tag with X46 and T411 on an up freight in the Benalla area — the two saviour locos of our earlier adventure. Our eventual arrival at Spencer St was around 12 hours later than we expected, but at least we had quite a tale to tell.
I had another subsequent experience with 42220, which fits into this tale as a postscript.
Around this time Victoria was suffering something of a loco shortage — a semi-perpetual situation, in this case pending arrival of the G class. Since 42220 had its ‘one off’ traction control system we thought it would be a good idea to see what sort of load it could handle on the line to Albury. The nominal load for 2000 hp locos was around 1000 tonnes, so we arranged a test train — a scheduled train built up to around 1250 tonnes. Thus it was, on Wed 15 Feb 1984, train 9689, (14·15 northbound), had 42220 hauling 42209 (dead but there as insurance) and a train of vans, car carriers, opens and container flats that grossed 1232 trailing tonnes.
It didn’t start well — late make up and the need to detach a ‘red card’ meant we didn’t get going until 15·48. Once under way we got a reasonable run for a while — although past the high viaduct (just after McIntyre Loop), more or less where the serious grades start to appear, the run times began to get ahead of us in a fairly significant way. We tottered over the Jacana flyover at 10 km/h, somehow managed 15 km/h up into Somerton and topped both Beveridge and Heathcote Jn at 13 km/h. A signal failure at Donnybrook and a cross of a WA L class at Wallan didn’t do a lot for our timekeeping.
By the time we came abreast of Seymour (platform) we decided that our point had been made and abandoned ship to get the up Albury pass back to Melbourne. Net loss of time was around 20 minutes or so, proving the point we had hoped to make. For some years afterwards 42220 had its own loads in the Victorian load tables, although if these loads were ever used is debatable — after all it was a loner and not even on the Victorian roster.
42220 still runs, but now as FL220 in Perth and under the Watco flag. It seems to spend most of its time on port link type workings — short distance stuff where the super-series gear would be of minimal value, even if it is still functional.
