[BruceAnderson]

Travelling By Steam Train​

Who can remember travelling on a train drawn by a steam engine? My mother would carry a wet washer in a plastic bag, because I would insist on dropping the window down, and half hanging outside the train.

 

[Luckyus]

Used to travel all over the country by steam train, much less of a rat race then?

 

[mylittletibbies]

Used to love going on the Puffing Billy through the Dandenongs when I lived in Victoria as a child.

 

[Suzanne rose]

I think this was before my time but would have loved to have gone on a steam train.

My memories are of the red rattlers with green seats and windows that you could open. And doors that were also manually opened.

 

[Mosey]

Loved the Puffing Billy as a child growing up in Victoria.

 

[Kinchar]

I still love the smell of burnt coal in the steam.

 

[NotNats]

use to ride a Red Rattler to Sydney then back to Lithgow 5 days a week right up til the late 70's. I use the first & last train of the day. Summer travel was fantastic but winter was a nightmare.

My Steam Power Train fix is always the ZIG ZAG Railway.

 

[Gunpark]

As a youngster, our family had a holiday every year at the south or north coast of NSW. The trains then were always steam powered and the carriages had windows that you could open. If you forgot to close the window going through one of the tunnels on either trip, you got a lot of smoke into the carriage, and if you put your head out of the window it could be odds on you would get a cinder in the eye. All good fun.

 

[Clancieblue]

I think this was before my time but would have loved to have gone on a steam train.

My memories are of the red rattlers with green seats and windows that you could open. And doors that were also manually opened.
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Suzanne, it's not too late. There are steam train rides to the Blue Mountains on weekends. They can be heard going past my house.
PS. Check ZIG ZAG RAILWAY for info.

 

[Nana Zorak]

As a High school kid I used to have to catch a steam train 1 stop to my nearest High School. Then walk 2 miles to the school. When I went to college in London I took the same Steam train to London every day. By the time I first started work the railways had changed to diesel. This was better in many ways , but didn't have the romance of steam. I have been watching the series on channel 7 about the Yorkshire steam locos that have been saved from the 50's. It is amazing how many Western Aussies go to Britain to see & travel on them. I don't ever want to visit a place I was able to escape from in the 60's. Thank you very much but I admire the people who still have family to visit there . I have outlived everyone of my era & at 86 have too many mobility issues to even bother to try to connect with the younger members of my extended family.

 

[Gus]

This topic caused me to remember, in my pre-teen years, my mother taking my sister and I on steam train rides at Christmas time each year to Tamworth, NSW, where we went to a property called 'Mount Erin' and I would spend hours each day in the shed watching the shearers cutting the wool from the sheep. I believe this was where my father met my mother as she worked there in the kitchen (and probably other domestic duties) when she emigrated to Australia from Scotland, and dad worked on properties.

 

[Gsr]

I used to travel on the red rattlers to and from the hospital where I was training as a nurse, and my home. I would catch the train about 5 in the morning, or at 4.30 in the afternoon depending what shift I was on. It was always hot in the summer and freezing in the winter. Same coming back on the train, I caught it at a small siding in our country area, in winter my father had to wave his torch to stop the train as the siding had no lighting, it was just a block of cement next to the train line. I was glad when I got my car so didn’t have to catch the train anymore. We have been on a few different steam trains over the years, with kids and grandkids, zigzag railway, steamfest, when we visited Tasmania. We always enjoy visiting train museums and a lot of them have steam train rides available. Love steam trains.

 

[Jest]

all i remember are the cinders.

 

[Jillie]

When I first started work I travelled on a steam train, but I took a cloth to wipe the seat as it was dirty from coal dust. Always plenty of seating room in the old carriages, more than what we get today

 

[Reet]

When I was a child we used to travel on the steam train to London from Clacton-on-Sea to visit my grandmother. I always had to sit facing the way we were going or I would be sick every time. My grandfatgher had worked on the railway for 40 years or more and ended up in the signal box at Clapham Junction which at the time was the busiest in England. The rails were controlled by moving long handles in the signal box to change the lines at certain points. The lights along the line would then either be red or green according to which line had been changed. Aah - happy memories!

 

[RieTreesSilver]

Suzanne, it's not too late. There are steam train rides to the Blue Mountains on weekends. They can be heard going past my house.
PS. Check ZIG ZAG RAILWAY for info.

Also in the Adelaide Hills - The Steam Ranger from Mount Barker to Goolwa and Victor Harbour, or good old Puffing Billy in the Dandenongs in Vic

 

[Ezzy]

My first memories of Steam Trains was when l was around 4 y.o. perhaps visiting the train station in Perth, W.A. with my father. I guess it may have been dinner time for the crew because the Loco was stationary blowing lots of steam & making a smell.

In 1965 l was amongst a group of boys in THE BOY'S BRIGADE who travelled from Perth to the Eastern States just before Christmas & eventually Queensland (to a Show Ground) via a Steam Train in wooden carriages for a PAN - AUSTRALIAN CAMP. At one point along our journey while our train was stationary, two of us sat on the window sill with our upper torso outside the train & camera in hand to photograph an approaching train. (which l believe l still have). We returned the same way after Christmas in 1966.

 

[Suzanne rose]

Suzanne, it's not too late. There are steam train rides to the Blue Mountains on weekends. They can be heard going past my house.
PS. Check ZIG ZAG RAILWAY for info.

I will check it out, thank you for letting me know , I had thought it had stopped ! We are going to spend a few days at Katoomba soon so will do it then.
Would love to go when it's snowing.

 

[Nana Zorak]

You can keep your snow that is part of the reason I escaped from England in the first place as well as the black fog that we had every year at that time. I am so much happier in Queensland & have been since 1965. I have traveled extensively in Australia though & New Zealand where I lived for 6 years from the time my daughter was 14 till 1996. I still love Queensland best though.

 

[fittsy]

hello,just treading these stories about old steam locos pulling box carriages brings back some memories , used to live in far west n.s.w. Broken Hill to be be precise, and the travel was only west or east east to sydney or west to Adelaide, well my recall is mostly to Adelaide, a slow coal dust trip, but always got there, yep, how things have progessed.