why is the 86 in the loco consist, is it there to be used on the overhead supply as there is a diesel loco shortage again, & if it is, did they overcome the problem that was one of the reasons PN scrapped them in the first place, eg they didn't want to pay to have an electric power consumption meter fitted so the NSW government would send them the bill for power consumption, one of those "OH SHIT! WE DIDN'T SEE THAT PROBLEM WHEN WE SOLD OFF Freight Corp to the private sector.
8606 is owned by SETS and operated by PN staff. 8606 needed a service and it was done at PN's yards down wollongong way. 8606 was in the consist because it was being bought back to sydney to run robel trains with 8649. Because it was going via the goods line it was just in the consist and non operational or else the panto might have been damaged. SETS 8644 might be the third 86 class operational for this task.
Freightcorp was sold to Toll/Patrick for 1.2B what Freightcorp made in profit in one year. They made 800M from coal haulage and 400M from general freight haulage so the Carr government sold the only profit making arm of the railways to the private sector. Then they had a heart attack for country passenger services were losing millions and they couldn't understand why. Freight in NSW propped up country passenger trains for the freight side always propped up country passenger trains. Country passenger trains (the XPT) are still losing millions but it's political suicide to think of getting rid of them.