Carriage restoration
Dennis, Graeme and I attended the Steamrail Victoria open day at the Newport Railway Workshops today. This was the first time for all of us, and on a day of firsts I drove Dennis and Graeme up in my Tesla, which was their first experience of an electric car.
This weekend, we are experiencing an early autumn heatwave with temperatures up to 37 degrees in Melbourne. We arrived early, while it was in the high 20s and made our way around a very entertaining, efficiently organised and interesting exhibition of static and operational locomotives and rolling stock. A number of carriages were connected into trains and parked with the air conditioning on, to offer people respite.
The Newport campus is adjacent to, but separate from the railway museum the three of us visited last year together (some photos are no Flickr). This operation is more in pursuit of maintaining or restoring locos to running order.
Whilst there is no doubt that locomotives are the stars of the show, I find the carriages, with the evidence of high quality work from various artisans, to be equally engaging. It is quite fun to envisage who rode in them and what their stories may have been, but also to imagine travelling in such luxury and comfort too.
Carriage restoration
Dennis, Graeme and I attended the Steamrail Victoria open day at the Newport Railway Workshops today. This was the first time for all of us, and on a day of firsts I drove Dennis and Graeme up in my Tesla, which was their first experience of an electric car.
This weekend, we are experiencing an early autumn heatwave with temperatures up to 37 degrees in Melbourne. We arrived early, while it was in the high 20s and made our way around a very entertaining, efficiently organised and interesting exhibition of static and operational locomotives and rolling stock. A number of carriages were connected into trains and parked with the air conditioning on, to offer people respite.
The Newport campus is adjacent to, but separate from the railway museum the three of us visited last year together (some photos are no Flickr). This operation is more in pursuit of maintaining or restoring locos to running order.
Whilst there is no doubt that locomotives are the stars of the show, I find the carriages, with the evidence of high quality work from various artisans, to be equally engaging. It is quite fun to envisage who rode in them and what their stories may have been, but also to imagine travelling in such luxury and comfort too.