Hiding in the haze.
I was going to have a couple of non-Flickr daze....but, just to round off the photo I posted yesterday of the train at Rosewood, here is a telephoto shot of the coal train that was hiding out beyond the station waiting to follow the electric set back to Ipswich and down to the Port of Brisbane.
It’s a hot and smoky day, and the bushfires which have plagued Australia this summer had already started in Queensland.
There are a number of open cut coal mines on the Darling Downs west of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland, either adjacent or near to the railway that runs into the far west of the state to Quilpie. The nearest is at Jondaryan and the furtherest away near Miles. Aurizon (formerly Queensland Railways) is the only operator of coal trains to these mines and runs trains of aluminium ex. grain bottom dump wagons totally I would guess up to 4000 tonnes (not big by Queensland standards) across the flat Downs and then down the difficult single track range railway (Harlaxton, Toowoomba at the top of the range is probably about 720 metres high and a climb of about 33 kilometres) with yet another climb closer to the coast over the lower Little Liverpool Range.
Once in Ipswich, the coal trains have to wend their way round a few Brisbane suburban lines down to the port. There is a fair bit of politicking behind a scheme to build a by-pass line which is not only more direct but avoids the built up suburbs. Sooner or later, if it gets built it will not only face the issue of falling coal exports, mine closures but more people living nearby. Even when they come knowing the line is there already, a lot of people quickly become NIMBY’s....Not in My Back Yards and start to complain.
The locomotives are ex. Queensland Railways GM powered 2300 class assigned in pairs. The 2300 class were conversions/upgrades from the 1550, 2400, 2450 and 2470 class. Some were later sent to Aurizon’s Western Australia operations where they became the DFZ class while at least two others have recently undergone further major conversions to lighter 2700 class locos. More were to be done but this may not occur owing to a reduction in coal and other traffic. Time will tell. Others have been laid aside and stored for the same reason. Some 2300’s still belong to Queensland Rail which is still owned by the state and operates all passenger rail services in Queensland, some public funded/subsidised freight and cattle trains (hauled by Aurizon locos which was the freight side of QR sold off to become a public company) and which owns and maintains the network with the exception of many of the central Queensland coal lines which are owned by Aurizon. This vertical integration in a world of ring fencing and privatisation doesn’t exactly fit the model and is still frowned upon by the Federal government and the Margaret Thatcher purists!
You can read more about the 2300 class here if you so desire.
Hiding in the haze.
I was going to have a couple of non-Flickr daze....but, just to round off the photo I posted yesterday of the train at Rosewood, here is a telephoto shot of the coal train that was hiding out beyond the station waiting to follow the electric set back to Ipswich and down to the Port of Brisbane.
It’s a hot and smoky day, and the bushfires which have plagued Australia this summer had already started in Queensland.
There are a number of open cut coal mines on the Darling Downs west of the Great Dividing Range in southern Queensland, either adjacent or near to the railway that runs into the far west of the state to Quilpie. The nearest is at Jondaryan and the furtherest away near Miles. Aurizon (formerly Queensland Railways) is the only operator of coal trains to these mines and runs trains of aluminium ex. grain bottom dump wagons totally I would guess up to 4000 tonnes (not big by Queensland standards) across the flat Downs and then down the difficult single track range railway (Harlaxton, Toowoomba at the top of the range is probably about 720 metres high and a climb of about 33 kilometres) with yet another climb closer to the coast over the lower Little Liverpool Range.
Once in Ipswich, the coal trains have to wend their way round a few Brisbane suburban lines down to the port. There is a fair bit of politicking behind a scheme to build a by-pass line which is not only more direct but avoids the built up suburbs. Sooner or later, if it gets built it will not only face the issue of falling coal exports, mine closures but more people living nearby. Even when they come knowing the line is there already, a lot of people quickly become NIMBY’s....Not in My Back Yards and start to complain.
The locomotives are ex. Queensland Railways GM powered 2300 class assigned in pairs. The 2300 class were conversions/upgrades from the 1550, 2400, 2450 and 2470 class. Some were later sent to Aurizon’s Western Australia operations where they became the DFZ class while at least two others have recently undergone further major conversions to lighter 2700 class locos. More were to be done but this may not occur owing to a reduction in coal and other traffic. Time will tell. Others have been laid aside and stored for the same reason. Some 2300’s still belong to Queensland Rail which is still owned by the state and operates all passenger rail services in Queensland, some public funded/subsidised freight and cattle trains (hauled by Aurizon locos which was the freight side of QR sold off to become a public company) and which owns and maintains the network with the exception of many of the central Queensland coal lines which are owned by Aurizon. This vertical integration in a world of ring fencing and privatisation doesn’t exactly fit the model and is still frowned upon by the Federal government and the Margaret Thatcher purists!
You can read more about the 2300 class here if you so desire.