Return of the Native (with apologies to Hardy) and some Holiday running.

E374 was the first locomotive, and one of the first pieces of rollingstock I built for Glenburn back in 2008. She did most of the early running of goods trains and was the test locomotive for most of the trackwork. She was always pretty low on power though, primarily through not having room for decent weighting, and my not wanting to strain the delicate mechanism she was built on. So, as more powerful locomotives became available, she was rendered firstly to just yard shunting work, then the larger loads being shifted in the yard obsoleted her there and she ran the track cleaning train for a while. But it has been some time since her last real (revenue) run. Some space has become available in the yard with the removal of the suburban stock to the new sidings recently (see earlier post below) so I lightly oiled her and placed her back on the layout for yard shunting tasks and occasional trip working. Todays No. 10a (Up goods ex-Warburton) was light enough that I called her up for the gig. So here E374 is once again taking the stage with a pretty eclectic consist, such have the cards delivered, but she handled it in her stride. Given she's a small tank with limited range, we'll have to imagine that for some reason she has taken over the run somewhere closer to the city.

Holiday break means some time for running, below are a couple of pictures of some of the workings.

As people leave for holidays and work numbers reduce, the "off peak" period extends, and the VR ever watchful of costs during this time reduces train sizes accordingly. This then becomes a common sight, two car suburban units form both Up and Dn services:

Ah, the elegance of an interwar country passenger train! D1 heads No. 31a with consist XYZ+G+B+C consist on the Dn through Glenburn..............

.............And here seen working up Glenburn bank.

1100 rolls No. 25a (Dn suburban goods) into Lilydale yard at the end of it's outward journey from Melbourne. Given operational requirements (read my big hand with an coupling/uncoupling tool....), I probably won't ever wire the yard, perhaps just the yard approaches, so I'll keep imagining the wires.

Yes, I still have'nt enough courage to repaint the boxcab, so here she is, still a rolling anachronism in the blue gold (which most true E class enthusiasts seem to rate a very poor 2nd to the all black livery for the E), heading No.14a (suburban goods ex Ferntree Gully) back toward Melbourne. All is not as it seems here - what appears to be a city bound Mixed with an AB car towards the rear actually is'nt. The AM Electric Motor needed to be transferred back to town, and was attached at the rear of an Up Goods.