STATION SERIES: MENANGLE

 

OK, this is to appease the couple of people who have told me the blog is far too loco-centric in nature.

Have you missed all the buses? :-)

Yes, I agree that my primary interest over the decades has been the noisy things at the front of trains, but on occasion I have photographed yards, stations and even, gasp, items of rollingstock.

To show that I care about people's opinions, no, seriously I do, I am going to try to include some rollingstock and railway station/yard guff amongst the good stuff (the locos that is).

In fact, if your less hateful than usual, I may even do a spark post or two. But I ain't promising anything.

What better a place to start than at Menangle station, where I spent many, MANY, a Friday night during the late 80s and the 90s.
Yeah, Friday nights. I do acknowledge how sad that sounds. However, I was far from alone.
Menangle station nights were like the Sydney version of the famed Sunshine nights in Melbourne.

Anyway, I decided to revisit my old haunt during a recent family trip to Picton to catch up with friends.
  Very different to our early days down there, but nice to see the main station building well looked after.

Opened: July 1863
Menangle is an Aboriginal word for swamp.
It is interesting to note that the local post office opened as Riverford in 1856, but was changed to Menangle nine years later.

Menangle Station on Pikiwedia.

Now for the moldy old shots.

OK, sorry, going back to those loco photos again :-)

4497 crossing the Menangle bridge.

One of those Friday nights I mentioned.
The light is fading fast, as 4456 approaches Menangle station as it heads to points south.

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Sydney to Menangle In The 80s

Great Ausie Gunzel Adventures

K-Med Does Menangle (and elsewhere)

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Menangle Station - Transport NSW

Menangle Station - Heritage Listing

Interested In heritage railway stations?

I recommend these great sites.

NSW Railways Past and Present

Brian Leedham's Rail Media

VICTORIA In The 90s

Welcome to another thrilling instalment of our 90s Victorian joyride.

This one concentrates more on the box type locos, however, we are making our way towards the more firm faves in railfan circles.
Now before sitting down to your typewriter and sending me letters full of grief, I do fully understand that these shots are not all taken in Victoria. The concept is more to show Victorian locos/trains, some of which ran in other states at the time.

No long a junction by this time, Yass Junction was the former junction for the line to Yass Town.
The branch closed at the end of the 80s, the main traffic by then being fuel for the CALTEX depot just beyond the terminal station.

Friday nights and Saturday mornings would usually find us at Menangle.
Alas, finding a life put an end to that.

A somewhat overpowered train :-)

The Intercapital Daylight Express between Sydney and Melbourne was always guaranteed to provide some entertainment on an otherwise quiet Cootamundra afternoon. By this time, the 81 and G class were the norm for this service, this remaining the case until the XPT took over the run.

Stay tuned for next months enthralling instalment.  

4427 partaking in works train duties around Bargo on a very overcast Sunday back in the 90s.

About the only shots we got all day between the intermittent cats and dogs.

Up pass passing over the oldest railway bridge in New South Wales at Menangle.

4486 and 48112 shunting around the now closed Flemington Market yards.

Very early on a Moss Vale morning, 4484 is found preparing to depart towards Sydney.

Having just stopped in Taree, 4470 4495 and a 45 continue their journey south.

4490 and 4520 were only quite recently restored when they lead 4201 out to Manildra and back.

4498 at Eveleigh.

4423 and 27 sit around the Delec turntable. Neither survived into preservation or private use.

4498 at Broadmeadow loco.

4486 is turned at Cowra prior to her first run in preservation.

4497 4483 44222 on 7SP5 passing through Bargo. 4480 and one other ALCo would be added at Goulburn before continuing on towards Cootamundra and then points west.

New South Wales grand lady of the rails.

~~ MORE RANDOM HELPINGS ~~

From The Murky Depths Of The Archive

Not the countries biggest loco, this wonderful little unit (MSB #2) now resides at the Menangle Machinery Museum. This museum is open a few times a year and well worth a look for railfans who like smaller industrial items.

JL404 1872 at Gelco (near Port Botany).

The JL has lost its logos nowdays, while the 18 has racked off to South Australia and doing goodness knows what.

Rowie (aka Sugarbush) very busy at work with his railfan duties.


Shakey (aka Matt English) enjoys a brief respite from attacks by MrX while Matty Green looks at something else.

A very sexy looking 4497 between duties at Leightonfield.

Twas a strange livery, but alas it is now one.

4488 at Leightonfield with one of them EL things

And for the heck of it another 44, this time in the shape of 4458 arriving at Gelco with containers for Port Botany. She two has lost her unique livery seen here.

3930 on a catle train somewhere along the Ipswich line.

To some it is so very boring, to others it brings on strange desires best not talked about, the famous 3801 is seen here crossing the very old Menangle bridge.

101 in the process of becoming a GL.

101 waiting to be vandalised and turned into a GL.

D17 on a torpedo ladle run.

Port Kembla steelworks.

Menangle Machinery Museum again, this time an operational kettle.