Being a public holiday, when a friend (raichase), suggested we head to the Hunter Valley for some rail photography, I thought “why not?” – I got a leave pass from the missus, and off we went. Sadly though the public holiday also meant less services than normal, but we still got some good variety. Sadly our typical lunchtime luck struck, and as we ate we saw a number of services go by, though we managed to catch up with some of them as there was a queue of trains waiting to get into port.

East Maitland:
8250/8237/8243 up coal (BO122)

Hunter railcars 2702?/2752

TT01/TT104/TT03 down empty coal

5005/5023 up coal

9018/9003/9035 down empty coal

8109/8111 up grain

A good variety of grain hopper types …

Sandgate:
XP2002/train/XP2018 – down Grafton XPT (NT35)

EL56/EL52 up coal 1416

XP2001/train/XP2017 – up Grafton XPT (NT36)

Hunter railcars 2756/2706

5 car up Northern Tablelands Xplorer (NP24)

5005/5023 up coal (again)

Caught off guard, nearly missed 44208 and 603 smoking it up in true ALCo style … down (SSRS) empty ore from Broadmeadow (4847N)

8109/8111 up grain (again)

One of my favourite pics of the day …

A lucky catch – wrong lens in a confined space … XRN009/XRN015/XRN006 down empty coal

Another favourite …

Warabrook:
8231/82??/8206/8209 up coal

5007/5031 up coal

On of the main reasons for heading up there was to catch an SSR coalie in action, before the new CEYs come online … lead here by C502, G513, 44206, and 44204 (CA04)

All up a good day …