6116 express freight

Hi Guy's

I still have lots of things to do on my modelling bench, but for something different I thought to talk about some of my inspirations for modelling. I like to model the trains that I used to see going past my family home. I grew up with the railway line across the road from my house at Taree. Anyway I am going the run a number of blogs talking about a number of trains that I watched and then start to photograph in my late teens in the early 90's.

One train was 6116 express freight. This train originated out of Brisbane in the early mornings and arrived at Taree Mid Afternoon. It run every day except Mondays. It was not a pickup freight by any means but on Sundays it did pick up Milk at Wauchope as the regular Pickup 6184 didn't run on Sundays. The make up of this train was a mix of Louvre Vans and Container flats and was a 100kmp runner. It's loading was mostly Fruit from Queensland.

The Containers were mostly light green COD(Committee of Direction of Fruit Marketing) and some 26 foot Race Reefer Containers. The container wagons could from any state providing standard gauge stock as long as they could run 100kmp. From what I understand most of these containers were transhipped from QR trains from points in North Queensland. This service still exist today provided by Pacific National using their BM2 train.

The Louvre Vans on this train would of been loaded in various point in Brisbane consisting of  Palletised goods and fruit. The Wagons were again from the interstate pool of wagons. Mostly NLKY/VLCX/VLDX/VLEX/WBAX & ABFX wagons were used. They would all have high speed bogies fitted. So bogies with 33 inch wheel wouldn't be seen on this train.

The Loco's on this train as running an express table would only be allowed from memory 600 tonnes per loco. So as this train was usually around the 700/800 tonne mark it was usually rostered for 2 loco in the early 90's. Mostly the combos were 44/44  442/45  44/45. Anyway here is a couple of my slide scans from back then and also a couple of Dave Porter Shots.

4473/4501 on 6116 at Grasslands in 1993. This train would of been on a Sunday with Milk Loading added to the front. It also has other loading on the back that was not usual for this train.

This is one of my earlier shots taken on the 6/8/91 that shows 6116 with 44209 leading crossing Dead Dog Creek at Kolodong. At this point LLV/GLX type wagons were still running. By early 1992 these were gone and the only GLX/LLV type wagons running were BGF (Banana Growers Federation) own Vans. They lasted till about mid 1993. To run this train they still needed high speed bogies as seen in the photo.

Again 6116 seen on a Sunday in late 1992. Loco's are 44218/44228 seen at Johns River. The wagons from Wauchope were not marshalled at the front of the train.

4403/4454 with 6116 rolls down into Taree not far from my family home on Thursday 10/12/92

4405/4467/4448 with 6116 seen at Kolodong on Saturday 20/3/93

David Porter Photo

4491 hauls 6116 at Melinga on Tuesday 18/8/92

David Porter Photo

44233/4472 on 6116 at Wingham on Saturday 6/3/93

David Porter Photo.

Lastly is this shot of 6116 at Kolodong with 3513/45xx on Tuesday 13/8/91. Around this time a single Car Carrier would be seen on this train. With the demise of the Motor Rail Service, a service was still offered using freight trains. 6116 was the south bound runner, 6285 was usually used for the northbound service. This didn't last for too long. There is only cars on the bottom deck of this car carrier.

 

Anyway this is a bit of a look at this 6116 express freight. I will in the future talk about modelling this train.

 

Cheers Justin Moy