Sunday, 6 July 2003, Canberra

Train crew duties begin a considerable time before the train arrives in the platform for its passengers to board.

The Guard starts some two hours before the train's departure time. Some of this is taken in preparing the dreaded paperwork. Forget the rails: a railway runs on paper.

The Train Consist Form provides details of the locomotive and its cars.

Each car has a unique number, for example BI 1175. All vehicles must be registered with the Rail Infrastructure Corporation (RIC) to run on their network and this number can be checked against a registration list.

Running an unregistered vehicle on rail is just as great a sin as trying to do so on the road.

The car's weight and length and the total hauled weight (that is, not counting the locomotive) and the total train length including the locomotive, are also recorded.

The names of the driver, fireman and guard are also included, as are details of the journeys to be made.

This form is faxed to the Train Controller responsible for the Canberra line (South Control) to confirm that the train is actually running. It is also faxed to the RIC accounts area so they can bill us for use of the rail network.

The Guard's Journal is the Society's paperwork for the train and contains a record of the train's journey completed as the day goes on, a checklist for items needed.

For example, two-way radio check with the loco, mobile phone (the number of which has been provided to the Train Controller on the Train Consist Form), availability of first aid box, stretcher, blanket, pillow and guard's emergency box (contains red flags and detonators to protect an immobilised train).

There is also your own note book to record your own record of the journey. It may provide useful evidence if things go wrong.

Not shown is the Brake Certificate Book in which the driver reports his testing of the air brake system.

The rest of the time is used to check the train itself is fit to run.

Walking through the train unlocking the doors, the windows, checking seats and fire extinguishers for damage and that no loose or misplaced fittings could cause a problem during the trip.

On the end platform cars, the gangway safety chains and safety gates are checked.

We fitted the gates when be brought these carriages back into service in the late 1990s. They ran for a hundred years without them, and people fell off them, but duty of care regulations (rightly) demand more care be taken.

Only the top chain is original. The lower chains and the upturned edge to the gangway footplate are also safety additions.

Our passengers are not experienced in travelling in these cars as was the hardened suburban commuter and so need more assistance in avoiding an accident.

The walk back to the front of the train is made outside, checking the car undersides for damaged or misplaced equipment. At the end of one of each car's two battery boxes is a white switch (modern) and a fuse box (original) which electrically isolates the batteries.

The switch is turned on, as failure to do this risks blowing every bulb in the car if the unregulated generator voltage is fed to the lights.

Failure to turn off the switch when the cars are finally stabled quite effectively flattens the batteries for the next trip.

The large metal cylinder slung from the arm is the generator. Its drive belt can be seen between it and the nearest axle.

It and the safety chains joining the bogie to the body have to be checked. These chains stop the bogie from slewing sideways in a derailment, thus making a bad accident worse.

Note the safety bars slung below the horizontal bar carrying the brake shoes to catch these items if they fall off. All the brake rods, pins and brackets are looked at.

Couplings and brake pipe connections between the cars are vital items needing to be checked.

These cars are close-coupled. The buffers are shorter than normal, allowing the cars to be closer together.

Instead of the usual hook and screw couplings, a D-link fitted to one car's drawbar passes through an elongated hole in the other car's drawbar.

The buffer springs are always under compression from the drawbar springs, so there is no shunting back and forwards between the cars when they are moving.

The brake pipes must be coupled and the air taps on both cars must be open.

This is very important for the train brakes to work correctly, and both the Guard and the Driver check them independently.

The orange electric cable is part of the lighting control circuit which allows the Guard to turn all train lights on or off. This cable is not in use, as the cable on the other side of the cars is being used.

If you think something looks like a motor vehicle Utilux trailer electric coupling, you would be right. It is part of a PA system we installed in the cars.

While the car lighting is electric, the red tail lights at the end of the train are not. They remain kerosene burner lamps.

One messy job is to clean the burner wick of the carbon build up and make sure there is enough kero. The porcelain wings of the burner create a wide flame, all the better to be seen.

It may be daylight but those lamps stay lit. Those initials stamped on burner mean Public Transport Commission of NSW, so the burner was made in the 1970s. We really can't trust that new-fangled electricity!

Once the engine has coupled to the train and the Driver has made his brake examinations and his checks on whether the train is fit to run, there is one more vital brake test - the continuity test.

This is the test which proves to the Guard that the Driver is in control of all the brakes of the train and can apply and release them when he wants.

This test is the reason there are brake pipe pressure gauges and air taps inside a number of cars.

From the end of the train, the Guard empties the brake pipe to zero air pressure.

The driver then re-charges the brake pipe to full pressure (75 lbs/sq in or 500 kpa), then reduces it to make a full brake application (down by 30 lbs or 200 kpa).

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The Driver then releases the brakes by restoring the brake pipe pressure to 75 lbs.

The Guard must see these pressure changes on his gauge and advise the Driver whether the test has operated correctly or not.

A failed test means that the brake pipe is not continuous from one end of the train to the other (hence the test's name).

A brake hose may be uncoupled between the cars or an air tap in the brake pipe may be closed. These must now be found and fixed before another continuity test is made.

Being Guard means that you see what our passengers see. Not always the case with other jobs around the railway.

This day didn't start too promising. The morning was quite foggy and the Canberra platform looked bleak. Not bleak enough to stop a full load of passengers though.

Actually our trips are probably very good bad-weather entertainment for ankle-biters turning feral.

One job for the Guard is to watch that passengers are clear of danger in coupling operations.

It is interesting and people want to watch, but we have to watch that somebody is not pushed off the platform or falls when the loco moves onto the cars.

Coupling itself is dangerous. We aim to be away from the vehicles when the loco moves onto the cars.

Even so, you need to be between the loco and cars as the loco compresses the buffers so you can drop the screw coupling over the draw hook.

You have to watch how and where you stand and be very careful how you hold the heavy coupling to avoid having your fingers very badly crushed.

You can see that David Malcolm has dropped the coupling over the draw hook. He has not tried to place it in the hook. Concentration and care is needed always

The Driver, Guard and Signaller watch the train leave the platform in case something is not right and the train needs to be stopped.

Here John Cheeseman prepares to exchange the departure time with me.

At the platform's end, the Guard gives the second "Right Away" to the driver to confirm that the train has safely left the platform with the Guard on board.

Don't laugh - it happens.

Foggy weather makes for spectacular smoke and steam effects. It can also make looking where you are going problematic sometimes.

Fortunately, the Driver is on the other side of this self-propelled fog bank. A good thing about fog is that it doesn't last. The day becomes fine and clear.

A most civilised place to travel is on the rear platform of the train. Thanks to gates, iron fencing and our supervision, passengers can enjoy this place.

The track can be seen heading down the grade of Tuggeranong Bank into the fog bank. Those down below have no idea what they are missing - sunlight.

The front platform of the train has its fans too. Tender first running up a steep grade gives passengers a close encounter with the business-end of a hard-working locomotive.

The Melrose Valley is a Canberra hidden secret, perched as it is above the suburbs. In true government fashion, it was once considered for the site of a rubbish tip.

One day we will be declared a Monaro Highway traffic hazard. Running beside the road, as we do, unsuspecting motorists come across that strangest of things - a train!

They do the obvious, stop rapidly and look. Waving back to them is compulsory.

Royalla is a crossing loop re-instated during the 1950s due to the increased traffic from the Snowy Scheme.

Its platform was falling down so we replaced it with similar construction. It is the current end of the line for passenger traffic so the loco runs round its cars here.

The passengers enjoy a sausage sizzle put on by a local Bush Fire Brigade - complete with fire truck to keep the ankle-biters enthralled.

Meanwhile the loco crew deal with a smokebox having an ash problem - unusual for 1210 to suffer this lately.

The jet of steam is from the ash ejector. As David scrapes the ash into a pipe in the bottom of the smokebox, the steam ejects it out the front of the loco. A cap seals the pipe during normal running. Beats shovelling any day.

 
See: Other editions of The Kingston Mail

 
See: Other editions of The Kingston Mail