Victoria Rail - 1988 VHS edit

[@G516R700]

Awesome footage from back in the 80's in Melbourne and Victoria. Excellent stuff

[@tedbear4243]

Thank you. As Ive posted below, I will re-edit and run it through Topaz AI one day when I get time. Ive got a bit more Victorian footage to come yet, thats been shot on Betacam SP

[@andrewgoldbergs4474]

Extremely good footage despite some tech difficulties..reminder of what was 25 yrs back when vintage diesels still had significant roles to play.

[@tedbear4243]

if only we had better quality recording formats available to us in the domestice sphere back then. A Betacam SP camera was well outof the question in most cases. Having said that, im currently transferring a heap of Victorian material off of SP from the 1990's

[@ThePaulv12]

Many of the EMD based locos still live I reckon and are in revenue service. In fact I was just looking at a couple of loco numbers and AN 700 class (as shown around the 10 min mark) only one is being used in anger so to speak. 706 as shown in the vid is in pieces but the body persists in storage. The AN 930 class are all out of service, so it seems the AN Alcos weren't as desirable as our good Victorian EMDs.

[@pharmajoe990]

I remember seeing the Flying Scotsman at Spencer street station when I was a kid. My grandad took me. Best day ever

[@ThePaulv12]

The Ingliston Bank shots are insane. Interestingly, the rail float on the inner or low rail at that location was incredible. Rail float is where the running face of the rail gets floated over like a liquid by the action of the wheels over time. 10m lengths of the rail head were peened over to the outside of the rail in some locations and pieces had broken off and others still attached or partially broken off. You could rock them and the sound would reverberate up the track. They were like blanks for making swords or something. Shows the limitations of dual purpose track - ie the compromise in superelevation. Elevate for passenger trains and slow speed freight rests on the lower rail, elevate for freight, passenger trains then wear the top rail. Also shows the complete lack of maintenance. I believe the Agave still persist there. I can just bet the rabbits are the same.

[@tedbear4243]

I didnt realise there was quite as much involved technically with the track, though have often wondered about superelevation for fast traffic vs slower rail traffic. The other thing I often wondered was just what impact the operation of super series with its controlled continuous wheel creep on the G's and BL's back then had on the rail head up Ingliston bank, as it was often active all the way up the incline on those Adelaide 'jets'. I will eventually digitally re-edit this from the original camera tapes, along with all the early videos that went up quickly at the start. Unfortunately with some of them the frame rate in the transfer process got changed from 25 fps to 24 fps, resulting in a dropped frame every second and posted before I realised. It will take me sometime to get to re-editing these and tidying them up, but I will eventually get to it. Thanks for the insightful and interesting comments, much appreciated.

[@michaelroper4237]

Tangerine V/line my favourite era :D very cool vid especially chasing the S class

[@normansilver905]

Thanks for sharing some Victoria rail history with us.

[@tedbear4243]

Thanks Norm. Ive got more to come as soon as I can find the time to deal with it. The next bit waiting to be edited was shot on Betacam SP, so the quality will be the same as the Upfield line videos.

[@StaffordMagnus]

Watching this I wish I'd been born 30 years earlier, I could have been one of those drivers in the hey-day of V/Line.

[@gojivr369]

Wow mate, as a kid I didn’t see any of this but this looks and sounds awesome. As it’s very hard to find videos from the 80s with sound because it would be filmed on 8mm silent.

[@tedbear4243]

Thx Dino. There were a few people starting to get about in the 1980's with video cameras. Its just a shame that VHS was/is so crappy

[@robbiewales3007]

Absolutely magnificent

[@tedbear4243]

I will digitally re-edit it sometime in the future and tidy it up a bit as well as sharpen it a bit too, and fix the frame rate error

[@retabera]

A wild Flying Scotsman appears!

[@DJP-ph7yj]

This is it right here

[@RailfanDownunder]

Great Memories .... Superb

[@SheltonDCruz]

Amazing footage!

[@tedbear4243]

Thank you :-)

[@WeldinMike27]

Fantastic. Love it.

[@tedbear4243]

cheers

[@SheltonDCruz]

Thanks!

[@movierazor]

I was waiting to see the Overland and Vinelander!

[@tedbear4243]

Would have been nice to have had both of those. And speaking of the Vinelander, its a total tragedy there is no passenger service to Mildura. My recollection is that it was reasonably well supported, though I could be wrong.

[@rsinclair6560]

Arrh yes, the 'Vinelander' cars on the back wagons to Mildura....waking up and seeing the Mallee scrub past Ouyen and sleeper cabins served a continental breakfast , with that famous Victorian Railway coffee . Arrival at Mildura, each car coming off the train was hosed down with fire hose to wash the dust off. Felt like a new country.

[@calcutt4]

Funny that now there are still many T, B and S class diesels running around while half the N class is stored

[@tedbear4243]

Its totally amazing that some of these older units remain in service.

[@peterbranch2913]

Enjoyed that Opening scene of Ouyen

[@tedbear4243]

There was plenty happening in Ouyen back then, as was the case with many places around the country. Wish I had more footage of Victoria from then. I will digitally re-edit the footage from the original camera tapes one day and enhance it as well. VHS to VHS edits from then are a bit ordinary.

[@markr6812]

19:18 The Never Ending Story theme 😂

[@tedbear4243]

Goodness knows what I was thinking at the time!

[@Steamtostay]

Do you have notes re consists or dates? I'm wondering, for example why the train running around at Sunshine had a guard's van but the B class on a similar consist a bit later didn't. Does that mean the Sunshine consist was a ballast train (VZMF), distinct from quarry train (VHQF)?

[@tedbear4243]

Hi there, yes the runaround at Sunshine was a ballast and the B class train was (I think - it was a long time ago!) a smaller than usual Apex quarry train from Kilmore East.

[@geoffbarry9540]

Might be appreciated?! Absolutely love it. If you have more I'd love to see it and so to I hope would many others.

[@tedbear4243]

Cheers Geoff. Stay tuned! It will take me a while as I just have so much on the go atm

[@allychat8496]

Have you got anything from Western Australia during this time?

[@tedbear4243]

Hi mate, sorry, have zero video of WA. Unfortunately I didnt get to WA back in those days :-(

[@rsinclair6560]

Well Ouyen has no yard these days. Not sure if siding into wheat silo either. All converted to standard gauge Mildura to Dunolly 2017. What a mess the $400 million converstion moving one rail in 6 inches and re-drilling the timber sleepers. A mess. Rabbit burrows hollowing out the embankment.

[@tedbear4243]

Totally agree that the whole conversion project is a disastrous mess

[@kadenemerson3569]

VR is now owned by Queensland rail but all the engines still have there orginal paint and numbers

[@stely_official]

No, VR became defunct in 1983, and the State Transport Authority replaced it, STA operated freight and passenger services under V/Line, and Metropolitan trains and trams under Metropolitan Transit, The Met for short. In the mid 90s V/Line (then operated by the Public Transport Corporation/PTC) was split into V/Line Passenger, and V/Line Freight, both bearing different branding, by 1998, National Express (a British group) took control of VLP, whilst VLF was sold to a consortium and rebranded Freight Victoria, then Freight Australia, and then sold to National Rail, which had become Pacific National. V/Line was handed back to the state government when NatEx dropped out of their operations, and has been operated by it ever since. The Met split into Connex and M>Train, M>Train disappeared with NatEx, and its network was handed to Connex, who then were thrown out in 2009, and control was retaken by the state government. The Victorian Railways have never been owned or operated by Queensland Rail.

[@jeffkitney39]

Good close up what a pity the quality is poor film

[@tedbear4243]

Yes, thats VHS for you. Eventually it will become a digital edit which will improve the quality just a tad

[@ducky_the_helper]

That fuzzy caterpillar towards the end was pretty cool

[@tedbear4243]

I like to throw in a few strange things every now and then just for a bit of fun :-)