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Mt Lofty Railfan visit.... with evidence of a battle lost Journals/Blogs
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Regular poster 105 posts Dan S. Regular poster 105 posts
Dan S.

This Easter weekend the kids and i did some railfanning with the main objective was to explore the Mt Lofty line out of Adelaide. This line leaves Adelaide South Australia and climbs the Beautuful Adelaide Hills up to the Highest point at Mt Lofty and then down the other side on to Melbourne Victoria. The grade through to the summit runs At approximately 2.25 percent so its not an easy run. Multiple diesel lashups and long intermodal and grain trains coupled with beautiful surroundings make this a favorite spot for me. As i model The Eastern United states.. namely the appalachians this is the closest thing i can get. The kids and i call them the Adelachians....

We started the day at the the summit at Mt Lofty station but as it was dawn there was not enough light to get good pictures of the beautifully restored station building. From the summit we hiked down to nearly  half way down the grade to where there is an abandoned station Still complete with platform.... surrounded by trees,hills and nothing more. The line is a railfans delight and is basically s curve after s curve all the way to the summit. the exciting times for the kids was the climb over the hills and through the bush when we got to the tunnels. The got to uses some navigation skills and kids love to climb.

Along the line we stumbled across something very interesting. beside the track something littered the ballast... it was a complete coupler. To them it seemed like junk but to me it was evidence of an epic battle against gravity that was ultimately lost. Now it may be common to see broken coupler knuckles but to see a whole coupler ripped out with the uncoupling lever still atatched was something else. Even parts of the draft gear box was littering the ballast. I explained to the kids that more than likely a train struggling up the hill broke in two as everything was bent and sheared off.

As it was the easter long weekend here there was next to no traffic on the line but we did get to see a heavy Adelaide bound intermodal with 3 units on the point in full dynamics gingerly decending the steepest part of the grade. I will share the images of the twisting curving line, various tunnel portals and beautiul scenery. It was great to get back to railfanning again and the fact my kids came with me  it ended up being a great family outing.

 

 

 
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pipopak Frequent poster 894 posts
pipopak

Is that....

..... a Kadee MK-5?

_______________________

Long life to Linux The Great!
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Dan S. Regular poster 105 posts
Dan S.

I think its a number 58 with

I think its a number 58 with the trip pin cut off
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LPS L1 Regular poster 329 posts
LPS L1

interesting, did you keep it?

interesting, did you keep it? what a conversation piece! and what's also odd is the knuckle pin did not fail but the whole coupler - see TRAINS OF THOUGHT April 2012 model railroader

SKOTI

Building a layout featuring a "what if" L&PS railway and any other shiny/grimy trains I can get my paws on.

lps_hea2.jpg 

 
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arthurhouston Prolific poster 1,154 posts
arthurhouston

Detector Comments??

What did the hanging detector say? How much of the train when into emergency when air line came apart??? Great day in the country with your chrildren learning about trains.
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arthurhouston Prolific poster 1,154 posts
arthurhouston

Where Are The Wiskers?

Just kidding thought it was a 14.
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Scarpia Prolific poster 2,152 posts
Scarpia

Keep wishing

Keep wishing, it's clearly a Sergent coupler.

Chessie, what camera are you using? The pictures are great, but look a bit foggy.
HO, early transition erahttp://www.garbo.org/MRRlocal time PST
On30, circa 1900  

 
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Prof_Klyzlr Moderator 7,956 posts
Prof_Klyzlr

"Ship to..."

Dear Chessie,

Love the fact that the crew marked it up "(ship to) Downer EDI .... Dry Creek ...", (Dry Creek being one of the major South Australian Loco Service facilities....)

Guess those are the orders for the next track maintainence crew that comes thru with a Hi-ab equipped highrailer capable of lifting the coupler onboard?

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Sydney, Aust
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Ken Kaef Regular poster 171 posts
Ken Kaef

Adelaide MR at Mt Lofty

I belong to the Adelaide Model Railroaders inc, We had an large HO scale layout in the Mt lofty Station building from 1967 to 1992. I used to take my kids up there then when we had our Saturday work days at the club and we used to walk along the track. We are now in the Outer Harbour railway station.

I was at an operating session last Monday April 2 and one of the crew is a driver for G&W. He was on a train headed up past Mt Lofty the week before last. They had a CL on the front. The CL is basically an SD40 with a bulldog nose and cowl type body for any one who does not know but they are much lighter than an American SD40. Any way the CL started to wheel slip on the way up. Also in the consist was a 700 alco built in the early 1970s. So the 700 was roaring away making great clouds of black smoke and chucking iol out on newly ballasted track. Finally they ground to a halt just 200 meters short of the summit at Mt lofty. The CL was taken off. and they had to wait for and STC train to come up behind and offer assistance. I wonder wether that oil on the balast in your fifth could be from that incident. 

Ken

Ken 

Kanunda and Emu Flat Railway   https://kaefken.wordpress.com/about/
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RAGC Regular poster 356 posts
RAGC

Fun trip!

It was either very foggy or you have a big ol' fingerprint on your lens!  
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Dan S. Regular poster 105 posts
Dan S.

as my digital  camera is not

as my digital  camera is not working i took the pics on my smart phone.i have tried and tried to clean the lens cover tried to clean the lens but i cannot get rid of the foggyness. there does not appear to have any damage to the lens or protecting cover but it has not worked. guess i need to get my digital camera fixed. and that would be half my luck for something like that to happen and i miss it.... been trying to capture a lost battle but still not lucky enough yet.

i am curious as to how frequent a stall is on this grade.

Dan
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George J Frequent poster 741 posts
George J

Somedays...

As a Navy Captain I once worked for once told me, "Somedays, you get the bear, and somedays the bear gets you!" Chalk one up for the mountain!

Great pics, thanks for sharing!

George

"And the sons of Pullman porters and the sons of engineers, ride their father's magic carpet made of steel..."

Milwaukee Road : Cascade Summit- Modeling the Milwaukee Road in the 1970s from Cle Elum WA to Snoqualmie Summit at Hyak WA.
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DKRickman Prolific poster 3,069 posts
DKRickman

No surprise, really

Quote:

what's also odd is the knuckle pin did not fail

Actually, knuckle pins do not fail - or more to the point it doesn't really matter as they don't do anything when the knuckle is closed anyway.  The coupler is designed so that the knuckle (and thus the draft forces) bears on various internal parts, lugs, etc., but not the knuckle pin.  I have seen quite a few cars running with no pins, and have even had to "borrow" one from another car on occasion.

It's not unheard of to see an entire drawhead pulled out like that, although I usually see them broken somewhere behind the head.  It appears that the draft gear failed in this case, which is surprising.  I have had one case where I pulled a drawhead out 9 cars from the rear of a 37 car train (and believe me, I got some ribbing for it), but the cause was that the key which holds the drawhead into the draft gear had broken and fallen out.  Easy fix, and nothing I did.  That drawhead in the photo doesn't use a key like that though - I'm no expert, but it looks like it came out of some sort of cushion draft gear.  I'll bet that was a mess to put back together.

Ken Rickman

Danville & Western HO modeler and web historian

http://southern-railway.railfan.net/dw/
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TomSP Active Member 74 posts
TomSP

I remember the eighties

During the eighties we lived across the valley at Upper Sturt, the quite evenings were broken by the roar of the diesels, and the squealing of the wheels echoing across the valley. Walking down next to the track one had to block the ears as the squealing was that loud. In those days the track had not been converted to standard gauge, it was still broad gauge. During the winter on Sundays Steamranger would run its steam engine through to the summit and on to Victor Harbor, a lovely site espically on a rainy day. One weekend a freight was working it's way to the summit when there was a loud cracking noise, following a pause came the crashing sound. A little later TV crews came down our street looking for a way to the track, we had to direct them another way. It transpired a section of the train had broken away, causing a big mess to say the least. When they converted the line to standard gauge with concrete sleepers, the squealing worsened. But as the they replaced the ageing locos, the loud deep grumble was replaced by a quieter turbo whine. The distance to the summit may not be as long as to Donner, but the grade is very steep and the curves very tight. They were good memories.

Tom

TOMSP
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