International Railroad Discussion > One Month Ago: To Seymour and Shepparton

On Saturday it was back to riding one of the broad gauge regional trains, this time to Shepparton with a stopover at Seymour to visit the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre. The Seymour Railway Heritage Centre is not a museum and not open to random visitors but tours can be arranged in advance which is what I did. And I will always appreciate the hospitality that I was shown and the extensive tour that I received from Grahame. They are all about restoring and operating vintage steam, diesel, and passenger cars across Victoria. It is almost entirely a volunteer operation but they do employ a mechanic/painter.

1.  As usual, the day started out at the Southern Cross station. The train to Shepparton would be a three-car Vlocity DMU. This route had recently switched over from locomoive-hauled trains.

2. Upon arrival in Seymour, there was a three-car set of V/Line Sprinters with service to Melbourne at the sizeable Seymour station.

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And now shots from the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre. Hopefully people enjoy a lot of nose-on shots. The locomotives that have been restored and are operable are in beautiful condition. The majority of those wear the classic Victorian Railway paint scheme. There is a mix of broad gauge and standard equipment, many of which have trucks (bogies) designed to be converted from broad gauge to standard gauge.

3. The T-class is an EMD export model G8 with a 567 V-8 engine but built by Clyde in NSW and comes in several body styles over the years. T378 is from the last batch of T-class G8s. There was a last batch of the T-class that are called G18B that have 645E engines.

4. Another late model T-class, T382. The wiring laid out in the foreground is to replace fire-damaged wiring from A-7 S303 that we will see later.

5. And here is an un-restored T-class G18B in Freight Victoria paint. In this scheme, the size of Victoria is greatly exaggerated on the map of Australia and Tasmania has been excluded.

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6. X-class X31 is a G16C (1966), B-class B74 is an ML-2 (1952), and T-class T320, a flat-top G8 from the first batch (1955).

7. A nose-on portrait of B74. The most amazing thing to me is that there are several of these locomotives still in freight operation. On this trip I saw both Consolidated Rail Leasing B75 and ex-CFCLA B80 which was being used by Southern Shorthaul Railroad in the Melbourne area.

8. One of the newer acquisitions is this Pacific National S-class A-7 that is a former Victorian Railway locomotive.

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9. Perhaps the pride of the fleet is this C-class C501, a GT 26CW, a close approximation to an SD40-2. Again, several of these are still in use, notably by Southern Shorthaul Railroad that just repainted two of them in their striking, modern yellow and black scheme.

10. Yet another T-class from the last batch of G8s.

11. And here is the ailing S-class A-7 S303 that toasted some of its wiring.

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12. Another view of S303 with a Spirit of Progress observation car behind. The Spirit of Progress was the premier passenger train between Melbourne and Albury, NSW on the broad gauge Victorian Railway. The centre has a significant number of carriages (coaches) from this train.

13. A broadside view of the S303 that makes me think of the Santa Fe paint scheme that probably never had an E-unit in blue and yellow.

14. Not sure that there is a more iconic profile than an EMD cab unit.

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Very nice coverage!

texchief1

Nice stuff, thanks for posting.