Lower Hunter Valley – 2 January 2012

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)
IMG_0757

IMG_0770

Hunter railcars 2702?/2752
IMG_0775

TT01/TT104/TT03 down empty coal
IMG_0794

5005/5023 up coal
IMG_0824

IMG_0878

9018/9003/9035 down empty coal
IMG_0886

8109/8111 up grain
IMG_0916

IMG_0957

A good variety of grain hopper types …
IMG_0985

Sandgate:
XP2002/train/XP2018 – down Grafton XPT (NT35)
IMG_1020

EL56/EL52 up coal 1416
IMG_1032

IMG_1051

XP2001/train/XP2017 – up Grafton XPT (NT36)
IMG_1065

Hunter railcars 2756/2706
IMG_1089

5 car up Northern Tablelands Xplorer (NP24)
IMG_1101

IMG_1127

5005/5023 up coal (again)
IMG_1146

IMG_1172

Caught off guard, nearly missed 44208 and 603 smoking it up in true ALCo style … down (SSRS) empty ore from Broadmeadow (4847N)
IMG_1179

8109/8111 up grain (again)
IMG_1219

One of my favourite pics of the day …
IMG_1281

A lucky catch – wrong lens in a confined space … XRN009/XRN015/XRN006 down empty coal
IMG_1299

IMG_1335

Another favourite …
IMG_1364

Warabrook:
8231/82??/8206/8209 up coal
IMG_1390

5007/5031 up coal
IMG_1476

IMG_1498

IMG_1519

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)
IMG_1576

IMG_1590

IMG_1616

All up a good day …

3 thoughts on “Lower Hunter Valley – 2 January 2012

Comments are closed.