Hello and welcome to my channel, and Rail Media Productions.
A variety of steam locomotives have survived into preservation and can still be enjoyed today at the many heritage railways and museums around the world. Throughout the videos we travel to a variety of locations to record steam action as well as broadcasting the achievements that so many volunteers and employees have put in to make sure heritage locomotives are able to be enjoyed by thousands of people worldwide. Videos are being released on the channel as soon as they become available, we are history enthusiasts and the aim is to bring you action from countries such as Australia, the United States of America and the United Kingdom. We also focus on the steam locomotives of the South Australian Railways and in particular, the 4-6-2 620 class. I sincerely hope you enjoy these videos and if you have any questions or comments please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Rowan Kinnane Principal videographer, editor and producer
Thank you very much for this, I am glad you enjoyed the video. It was nice to go to Western Australia to film some of the steam locomotives over there. I am definitely looking forward to the next visit. Best regards Rowan from Australia.
@@JacobHeiseiGojirayashazilla994 She is a magnificent locomotive and a credit to the people who restored it to operational condition. Looking forward to seeing the loco when it runs again in the future.
I was really hoping to film 621 when it returns to steam. On Tuesday morning I booked the next trip to the mainland, but I only found out about 621 running from the 29th of September yesterday and by that stage it was too late to reschedule everything. If the loco is going to stay at Goolwa so it can run the Cockle Train over the summer holiday period, that would be the perfect opportunity to come over with the camera to film it.
@@Cullerin112 I will see if I can find out about the livery on F40, there is a photo on Flickr of 2 F class waiting to leave Dwellingup in the 1970’s, and the colour scheme has some differences.
@@railmediaproductions3677 interesting, I've never seen that before, I've seen boom gates where they have a different bell for the gates lowering and the gates being down but not this
It is a real shame that an L and C class didn't make it into preservation. I have never managed to find any film footage of a C class in action, I did get permission to publish quite a number of photos of the C's in service.
@@Cullerin112 It’s well worth it. The grades on the Hotham Valley Railway are very steep and one section gets down to 1 in 30. I am just about to start editing the footage from the main camera and I hope to begin uploading it all to channel from Friday or Saturday.
Thank you very much for that James. Its been nice to do some travelling around the country this year. I hope you are still keeping well, its been a very long time since we last saw each other in person.
@@Watrainchaser9037 Yes it was nice to see the headboard on the W class yesterday. It was also a surprise to have the XA in service on the first train of the day.
@@Watrainchaser9037 The XA is a nice locomotive. I hope I can do a quick trip back to the Hotham Valley next month before the 2024 steam season comes to a close.
@@williamwelbourn7932 It’s a fascinating collection of locomotives at Collie. I am filming the W class steam loco on the Hotham Valley Railway today and the weather has turned out beautiful. I should be able to post up some shots of loco later today.
@@Watrainchaser9037 No unfortunately I didn’t have time today, but after filming at Collie tomorrow I plan to go up to Dwellingup to check out the locations along the track.
@@Watrainchaser9037 Yes I am definitely going to give this a go tomorrow. When I was filming at Pinjarra this afternoon I managed to get footage of 3 freight trains going past. I am going to put those shots up on the channel when I return home in a few days time.
@@aradhanaparage3224 Yep, most of the trips featured in this film were taken on the mainline between Adelaide and Mount Barker Junction. I don’t think these particular tours ran all the way to Victor Harbor, but they definitely operated on the same trackage that the Southern Encounter ran on back in the day.
@@russellharding3371 I can’t wait to see 621 back in service. It was nice to look over the engine again when I was at Mount Barker on the 19th of August.
@@adambrinkworth I haven’t heard any updates on this recently. I think there is a still some more work to do on the boiler before it is put back on the frames.
It's a Commonwealth Railways L class boiler (basically the same as SAR 740 class). The giveaway to it being an L class is the air compressor mounting bracket on the LHS of the boiler. It looks like Malaysia is written on the address which would quite possibly make it the boiler from L82 whch eventually went to Kuala Lumpur..
@@hackenbush23 Thank you very much for this information, it is most appreciated 👍 I have got another 16mm film to upload tomorrow, this one will be of 621 operating ARHS tours in the 1970’s.
@@hackenbush23 Glad you enjoyed the film 👍 Thanks very much again for the information on the boiler. I had to re-send this reply as I accidentally pushed the send button as I was writing to you.
@@Cullerin112 I am not 100% sure on this but work on the loco is progressing well at Mount Barker. I saw it in the workshop when I was there on the 19th of August.
It is mainly due to the conversion of the mainline through the Adelaide Hills from Broad to Standard Gauge which took place in the mid 1990's. Also, the line through the Barossa Valley was also converted to Standard Gauge.
@@Cullerin112 SteamRanger’s Victor Harbor broad gauge line was connected to the broad gauge Adelaide Metro and regional SA network via the formerly broad gauge Adelaide - Melbourne line. The Adelaide - Melbourne line was being converted to standard gauge - the broad gauge trains cannot travel on standard gauge because the width between the wheels of a broad gauge train is wider than the width between the rails on a standard gauge track. Steamranger made the decision to transfer everything from Dry Creek, on the Adelaide Metro network, to a new depot at Mount Barker as well as an existing depot at Goolwa, both on the Victor Harbor line, so they were isolated to that one line. It was probably a good choice because by 2014, there were no more SA regional broad gauge lines connecting from Adelaide open. There was still one broad gauge heritage operation connecting to the Adelaide network, the National Railway Museum, sometimes operating redhen railcars until 2015. My understanding is that they were preparing for a weekend of runs in 2016 as they had been in 2013-2015, but they needed additional work done to be accredited that year for the Adelaide Metro network and it was too costly for the National Railway Museum, so they never ran on the Adelaide Metro network again. The requirements for operating on the NRM track is not as strict so they still do that today. SG operations on the ARTC network happen but very, very irregularly. The last proper tour with passengers was a railmotor tour from NSW a couple years ago, but I have read online that the railmotors had to travel at a restricted speed up to flashing lights/gates crossings, it seems like ARTC doubted whether NSW railmotors could activate SA crossings. This fact I am a bit unsure of but I also read that ARTC wants the railmotor operator to do test trips without passengers in SA and that would be too expensive since no passenger tickets would be funding the trip. Unless an interstate operator plans an SG tour into SA, our best bet for a mainline operator at the moment is ALARC which has run a few transfers and test trains in the past few years, but I find them to be quite a mysterious operation so far, information is very limited on them compared to most other operators.
The W class footage is from the first weekend of train operations in July 1974, while the Coffee Pot footage is much more recent, probably late 80s just after she was returned to service
@@ChippertonTramwayCompany Thanks very much for that information. I will have to get back to the Pichi Richi Railway with the video camera at some stage.
@@Cullerin112 I recon it would have been sometime around 1974 when the society started operating public services on the railway. Unfortunately I couldn’t find a date for the shots of the Coffee Pot at Quorn.
@railmediaproductions3677 Uncle Tom died in about 1950. He was riding his motor bike to Port Arlington, mums family was living down there at that stage, a bus run him off the road, and he died. I never knew him, I was born in 1953. My mum, also now passed away, told me about his railway service, when I started on the Victorian Railways in 1970, here in Ballarat. A lot of the family have VR ties, my mum, all her sisters and nan, all worked in the refreshment rooms here at the Ballarat station, Uncle Tom, my dad, my step father, and me all have a direct connection to the Railways. My stepfather, Ron Windram, was foreman carpenter at the Ballarat North Workshops.
@railmediaproductions3677 I've seen photos of Uncle Tom, he must have been a big bloke. There's a photo somewhere here of him with another Uncle, also a big bloke, but Tom was much broader. Swinging the shovel I guess.
@@kellyswoodyard That was very sad to hear about the circumstances surrounding your Uncle's passing. He must have had some great stories from his days on the Victorian Railways.
@@kellyswoodyard He would have had some interesting stories from his time with H220, it is a magnificent locomotive. It would be great to hear and see the engine working hard on the mainline again.
@@LukeWatson99 Hi Luke. I ended up releasing a video of the 520 the day before this one went public on the channel. Here is the link to the video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-R5Dvn9RcUIc.htmlsi=UzgCAqFnXfqnb6GD
