Recent content by QJ

Day 12 (21/03) Saturday Pack up and go home day. I had thought to get up to view the departure of the Overland (on what appears to have been its penultimate departure from Melbourne. Its reported last run was 24/03) and the other long distance Victoria Railways services leaving between 07:00...

I have some more early age memories that have just come to me. One of my fleeting memories was of my parents taking me to the Isle of Wight for a holiday in the early 60s - unfortunately by car. The vivid rail memory of this trip was seeing a freight running alongside the road on the way to the...

Day 11 (20/03) Friday Up before the lark to catch train 8460 06:03 from Bairnsdale returning N471 to Melbourne Southern Cross with enough time to visit the McDonalds before boarding. not that I had time to visit but east of the station is a rail trail making use of the track bed of the closed...

Day 10 (19/03) Thursday Today I should have been preparing to go back to the UK but I had received a message from the airline I was travelling with that I could switch flights at no extra charge. Because of circumstances at home it was better that I delayed my return till the weekend so I did...

That might be so but the post to which I replied specifically mentioned "London terminals". Provide you have enough money on your Oyster card and tap in and out for the journey being undertaken then, as you say, London terminals is irrelevant.

Not if you are going to Saint Pancras from south of the Thames. The limit of "London Terminals" is City Thameslink. Easy pickings for revenue protection inspectors.

Day 9 (18/03) Wednesday With my flight to Avalon (not, alas, the island of Arthurian legend but an alternative airport to Melbourne Tullamarine) scheduled for late morning my plan was to travel over a bit more broad gauge track. Hence the Adelaide metro card I obtained the day before. Down at...

My earliest memories of travelling by train are when I was around five or so years old. My parents never went anywhere by train preferring the family car. The exception was my mum taking my brother and I to Tavistock for the day in the school holidays. I recall the viaduct over the town and the...

This is the sort of question that has me scuttling off to my database. And it appears I did manage catching cross country trains from Kensington Olympia a couple of times as follows: 07/06/1986 Ashford Chart Leacon Open day I travelled from Wolverhampton to Kensington Olympia on 1O60 05:20...

Day 8 (17/03) Tuesday The Overland Melbourne to Adelaide train journey was on my original list of things to do. I thought I had left it too late expecting it to have ceased running at the end of December but the Victoria Government kindly subsidised it for three more months to the end of March...

Day 7 (16/03) Monday After a day of no winning locomotive haulages it was up early in the hope that I might add to my tally of N class haulages. My plan was to take train 8081 leaving at Southern Cross at 07:41 for Swan Hill whatever the traction to clear the required track north of Bendigo so...

Day 6 (15/03) Sunday 707 Operations train 8294 duly departed at the appointed hour of 06:00 with XR555 leading S306 and H5 in multiple. Not that I got out of my berth to witness it. I just glanced out the window and surfaced a hour and a half later for breakfast. The same fare the previous day...

Day 5 (14/03) Saturday Having enjoyed the camaraderie of the bar car the time came to leave. But not to my berth. Beyond Bacchus Marsh (named after founder Henry Bacchus) and the limit of V-Line loco hauled service trains the railway line climbs for several kilometres at grades of 1 in 48/50...

Day 4 (13/03) Friday. Up early again for a wander down to Southern Cross to determine what destination I was going to choose to visit and get another breakfast pie and long black (coffee). The 707 Operations Grainlander, Sunset over the Harvest railtour was not due to leave until 22:30 so I had...

I thought that as well. But circumstance found me in Melbourne with a free pass from the missus who wasn't able to travel with me. It was a great sacrifice leaving her behind.