Learners at Pinkenba
How the mighty have fallen. Queensland Rail 2470 class number 2490H and 2400 class number 2414 crawl around the balloon balloon loop at Pinkenba beside the Brisbane River on the last of four driver training runs down this rarely used branch line on a wet and dreary Sunday 14 June.
My wife and I were headed to our daughter's place not far away but decided to take the long way and oft travelled route via Pinkenba and the Airport just in case something interesting of any nature popped up. We saw a few planes take off from the airport and some birds paddling about near the Luggage Point Treatment works before taking a side road into what was once the busy railway yard at Pinkenba where I was to take a couple of arty shots (not like me)! Anyway, heading back I noticed a QR worker at this unlikely place on a Sunday morning and then another further back towards the city that raised my suspicions. We eventually returned to sate my curiosity when I noticed the usual coating of rust on the rails had turned to a fresh shine! Ah ha, a train of some sort about in a place where trains rarely go. So off back to Pinkenba to ask, and as we arrived, there were these two locos! Now, this was a catch indeed. Breaking news stuff. Asking the high visibility clad and friendly staff member, he told me they were on driver training, doing runs up and down the disused (nearly) part of the branch.
Passenger train services on this branch now terminate at Doomben while the rest of the branch has lost its own sub-branch to Hamilton and the wharves and all its sidings, while all sidings at Pinkenba including oil refinery, gas terminal, fertiliser works, petrol terminals and grain storage and ship loader are all gone. The view straight ahead in this shot heads towards where most of those sidings were once located and the expanse of nothingness in the main part of the shot middle to right was the old Pinkenba Yard that consisted of multiple tracks with the former grain silos and unloader on the left while the wharf is just out of shot to the right. The large silo like facility is now an ethanol plant which was to be served by rail but only a couple of trains ever ran after it opened while grain now comes all the way by road from the Darling Downs (when not in drought). Pinkenba used to be a busy railway place.
The separate Pinkenba railway station which was served by passenger trains until 1993 and its tracks have been also obliterated, the old station building having been cut in half, one piece to a private residence at Cleveland and the other half went across Moreton Bay where it serves apparently as a ticket office for North Stradbroke Ferries on the island of the same name.
I can only hope that new American railway company, Watco which has set up in Queensland may win some traffic back to rail and return here. Otherwise it will remain a balloon loop used only for the occasional heritage trip or crew training until someone decides it is too expensive to maintain and goes the way railways of the 21st. century all to often do, closing as freight is moved to already busy and undercharged road freight operators.
Learners at Pinkenba
How the mighty have fallen. Queensland Rail 2470 class number 2490H and 2400 class number 2414 crawl around the balloon balloon loop at Pinkenba beside the Brisbane River on the last of four driver training runs down this rarely used branch line on a wet and dreary Sunday 14 June.
My wife and I were headed to our daughter's place not far away but decided to take the long way and oft travelled route via Pinkenba and the Airport just in case something interesting of any nature popped up. We saw a few planes take off from the airport and some birds paddling about near the Luggage Point Treatment works before taking a side road into what was once the busy railway yard at Pinkenba where I was to take a couple of arty shots (not like me)! Anyway, heading back I noticed a QR worker at this unlikely place on a Sunday morning and then another further back towards the city that raised my suspicions. We eventually returned to sate my curiosity when I noticed the usual coating of rust on the rails had turned to a fresh shine! Ah ha, a train of some sort about in a place where trains rarely go. So off back to Pinkenba to ask, and as we arrived, there were these two locos! Now, this was a catch indeed. Breaking news stuff. Asking the high visibility clad and friendly staff member, he told me they were on driver training, doing runs up and down the disused (nearly) part of the branch.
Passenger train services on this branch now terminate at Doomben while the rest of the branch has lost its own sub-branch to Hamilton and the wharves and all its sidings, while all sidings at Pinkenba including oil refinery, gas terminal, fertiliser works, petrol terminals and grain storage and ship loader are all gone. The view straight ahead in this shot heads towards where most of those sidings were once located and the expanse of nothingness in the main part of the shot middle to right was the old Pinkenba Yard that consisted of multiple tracks with the former grain silos and unloader on the left while the wharf is just out of shot to the right. The large silo like facility is now an ethanol plant which was to be served by rail but only a couple of trains ever ran after it opened while grain now comes all the way by road from the Darling Downs (when not in drought). Pinkenba used to be a busy railway place.
The separate Pinkenba railway station which was served by passenger trains until 1993 and its tracks have been also obliterated, the old station building having been cut in half, one piece to a private residence at Cleveland and the other half went across Moreton Bay where it serves apparently as a ticket office for North Stradbroke Ferries on the island of the same name.
I can only hope that new American railway company, Watco which has set up in Queensland may win some traffic back to rail and return here. Otherwise it will remain a balloon loop used only for the occasional heritage trip or crew training until someone decides it is too expensive to maintain and goes the way railways of the 21st. century all to often do, closing as freight is moved to already busy and undercharged road freight operators.