CELEBRATING A TRUE RAILWAY ICON - The The Southern Aurora Passenger Train turns 60.
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- čas přidán 9. 05. 2022
- Welcome to Schony747 trains on Wednesday. If you enjoy the video, hit the like button and smash the bell for weekly updates on Schony747.
This week Schony747 features the Southern Aurora overnight express passenger train which ran between Melbourne and Sydney between 1962 and 1986. 34 cars were ordered jointly by the Victorian Railways and New South Wales Government Railways. The Aurora was unique as the all steel passenger consist was a sleeper train service only with lounge cars and dining facilities on board as well.
Recently St James Rail - www.stjamesrail.org/our-next-... ran the 60th anniversary Southern Aurora tour between Sydney and Melbourne. The presentation covers part of the tour and gives you some historical facts about the train you won't see in most other videos covering the same train.
This will bring back some memories for lots of people. So sit back and enjoy The Southern Aurora as it was in 1962 but seen in 2020.
Thanks to Alex and Joel for contributing to this presentation -
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Filmed April 2022 Melbourne, Sydney and Country Victoria.
Filmed in 4K SonyAX 53 Handheld.
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After I migrated to Australia I would travel once monthly on "Southern Aurora". Loved the service and quality of the meals in the dining car and the ambience in the lounge cars. After the service was replaced by the XPT I returned to the skies.
When service was service. Everybody wants everything for nothing these days but expects the same service.
Very nice film, I remember as a young teenager going to Newport Workshops to collect some equipment when I worked for the Victorian Railways and there was some carriages from the Southern Aurora that had some damage from the Violet Town disaster still awaiting repair there still back in 1970, and vividly remember the feeling of empathy for the loss of lives and was quite sobering to say the least 👍
And people still feel the same way today as well. Thanks for having a look
Thanks for sharing.
Mum and I could never afford a sleeper, on this train, so we would use the Spirit of Progress instead if we needed to get to Sydney.
A pity, I would have loved to have traveled in style on The Aurora !
My father used to travel on the SOP and had to change trains at Albury due to the different gauges. The Spirit was still hauled by steam when he rode it with his mum as well.
If I remember rightly the Spirit of Progress departed Spencer St at 6.35 PM and I lived in North Melbourne and around 6.45 I would stand on our verandah and watch it puff it's way through Kensington. A beautiful sight.
When it was running 12 carriages in the 70’s , with one S class of 1800 hp it used to struggle a bit around the hills especially around Broadford. I never saw it with more than 1 loco on it. Either an S or even a B & later X’s. We went to Sydney in 1981 . The meal was absolutely fantastic. Roast Beef, melt in your mouth stuff.
It is not only a shame but utterly irresponsible not to have High Speed Trains between Melbourne & Sydney in 2022.
Thanks for sharing the memories. Lots of people have good memories of train.
Nothing like the sound of an EMD supercharged diesel under power .
Also my brother a real train enthusiast told me years ago the Southern Aurora normal consist was 8:sleeper cars, 1 dining car, 1 club car, a baggage car & a power car.it was normally pulled by an S class, later in the 70’s they started using X classes. My first trip was as a student in 1974 , half fare from memory.
Sounds about right. It was normally a 14 car consist and in later years was hauled by a mix of New South Wales and Victorian locomotives when through running was a thing.
Thanks Brendan, great video.
Thankyou mate
Good to see this coverage.
However the really significant date for the Melbourne Sydney standard gauge was the real opening for the first freight train operated on 3 January 1962. Celebrated as such by the Victorian Railways.
Then improvement in freight volumes by the railways was much more significant for Australia but harder to track down information or film of this real landmark event.
While I made the effort to have my employer send me on a business trip by the Aurora in the early eighties instead of the usual plane, not enough other travellers did not, leading to a shaky existence for it and the eventual replacement trains later on.
The standard gauge for freight having little of these problems even today.
I actually wasn't aware the line opened up in January that year. After reading further the track opened with 6 passing loops. Try running a railway with that infrastructure these days!
The Spirit of Progress always had a sleeping car in the consist and sometimes two.
100% correct. In the 60s two cars from the Spirit were offloaded and sent to Canberra as well I think 3 times a week.
@@Schony747 I am not sure but I think that happened at Goulburn for passengers to and from Melbourne.
Before the train service was introduced they gave an open day at Spencer St, I can remember walking along those strange S bend corridors designed to fit the "roomette" sleepers efficiently.
Then a few months later at Broadford watching as it went past with the neon "Southern Aurora" sign on the rear coach. It was however disappointing to see the "Spirit" ( of no progress) relegated to an also ran train.
Spirit still served an important role as the stopper which in my view still made it a valuable contributor.
Goodday Brendan,
What a great video.
Since the combo was dragged back up to Sunshine North how did they turn around the S Class so it is facing the correct way for its trip back to Sydney.
I suspect the S Class used the 2 Sunshine Road bridges as a diamond manouver that is the only way I can see it happening.
I remember back in 1988 I used to catch the suburban train from Sunshine Station to the city every morning whilst I was studying at RMIT.
Every morning the Sydney bound train would pull up at Sunshine Station. Back then there was a station in Sunshine for SG Sydney bound passenger trains.
I remember looking into the carriages watching people eating breakfast always sausages & eggs.
Mostly VR Blue carriages, don't remember the loco's because they were way past the platform.
Then from the Ballarat line rolls in the Overlander with a 930 Alco out front.
Slowly they will come to a stop all the Sydney bound passenger's would disembark from the Overlander on Platform 1 walk to the SG platform & embark on the Sydney bound train to goto Sydney.
This whole delay would take upto 10 minutes whilst all the while the city bound suburban train is at a stand still between Albion & Sunshine, & the
St Albans bound train is at a stand still waiting for the Overlander to fully come around the bend.
Always the last 2 to 3 carriages still blocked the line.
Every morning without fail.
Then 10 minutes later a Superfreighter from Adelaide would round the bend taking 10 to 15 minutes to fully clear itself off the suburban rail network.
Miss those days, Sunshine Station every morning was a very busy station.
Cheers
Louis 👍
The consist was turned on the triangle. I grew up in Ballarat and remember the night Overland that would block the Lydiard St gates as it was so long.
Greetings from Florida! I really liked your video of the Aurora train and it is a real shame that it does not run anymore. One thing I always wonder about is why there are two different guages for NSW and Victoria- South Australia. It seems that in the past it held back economic growth and trade between the different states.
The different gauges was a way of preventing competition from other Railways from other states back in the early days. In the long run it was a stupid idea which is only being rectified now. The Aurora like all other classic trains are a victim of low cost air travel and that's unlikely to change. Thanks for having a look.
Great video Brenden, I wonder how many of the cars were written off resulting from the Violet Town VIC collision in 1969 and were they replaced by Comeng as new builds? I visited Violet Town about three years ago and local historian Bruce Cumming was the perfect host with a wealth of knowledge. Pity you couldn't source some snippets "time line" style of the train over the years. Still very enjoyable.
I don't know too much about Violet Town to be honest. I'm just happy I was able to reverse ord these scenes over recent years. People seem to be enjoying the format of the video instead of just watching the same train in multiple locations.
I have the figure somewhere about 5 or 7, they borrowed some of Commonwealth Railways until they were replaced with new ones. It was an horrific crash both trains were flat out , the goods would have been doing 60mph the Aurora 70mph.
@@beagle7622 It's all available on Wiki.
@@beagle7622 Thanks Beagle, a visit to the Southern Aurora Museum Park at Violet Town is worth a visit.
It's a shame this train no longer runs what with the resurgence of over night sleeper trains around the world. I've read in Railpage that the new trains on order by NSW will not have any sleeping accommodations so therefore when the last XPT is retired sleeping car service between Sydney and Melbourne ends. This is a real step backwards.
There's a huge difference to the market in Europe and Australia. Why would you spend over $250 on the XPT sleeper when you an fly to Sydney for $100 in just over an hour. Reality is there probably isn't a market for sleepers in Australia anymore.
Super video, like...
Thankyou mate
Another great video, with nice collaboration with others to make a excellent video. Just a curious question 🙋🏽♂️ if I may. When the train left Sydney it had the S & T locomotives. When it arrived in Albury it had the P added. You know why this happened and where? Thank you.
P was dropped off and added again at Goulburn. Something about P class not being able to run in the Sydney metro area.
@@Schony747 Thank you for your reply. Absolutely love all your videos and not just on the trains. Great work!
@@Schony747 Yes, apparently it lacks the ICE equipment. But it failed a few minutes after departing Goulburn, and remained a dead weight for the whole of the trip back to Goulburn.
Growing up I can remember there were 3 trains even I living in canberra knew about these were the Indian Pacific in its early interation the Sothern Aurora and the Spirit of Progress, With my love o steam trains I particularly remember the Steam S class pulling the Aurora up to albury where the passengers would change to NSWGR for the rest of the trip. This was why the Platform there is so long as initially the broad guage tracks would meet the standard guage on the one platorm so passengers would only have to walk from one train to the other without needing to fuss too much, I believe that in the end the Vic trains would pull into the shorter side of the platform and then passengers would just swap sides of platform to get on the standard guage train. To me it is a pity these iconic trains have for the most part died out as though not really economic these days I bet many would love to ride them if run or some time each month over the longer holiday periods. I am also not sure if I remember that at one point you could also take your car on these trains or if it was only the Indian Pacific.
The worst thing to me is that we here in Australia are all to willing to shut down lines and services when if done right it could be a good seasonal thing to have some lines still used by historical trains to show how things could be and were . Many rom England or example love that we stil use the XPT regularly and have expanded its run from Melbourne to Brisbane fully and i beleive even beyond that , where they have almost completely gotten rid of the train the XPT is based on the HST 125.
I grew up in Ballarat and remember the Overland in its hey day. Two stops at Ballarat as the train was so long and in some cases a second train as the service was so popular.
The VR steam S class were all scrapped by 1954. Scrapped well before the Southern Aurora was even thought of.
You might have been one of the few that remembered the streamlined S class Pacific's that were the standard motive power on the broad gauge Spirit of Progress train until replaced by B class diesels around 1953.
Although a few tests of the Spirit were done pulled with Heavy Harry giving a much faster service even though limited to 60 mph the far greater power of the H had it storming up the hills. So the story goes.
On it's first Syd Melb trip I and a crowd in a Benalla paddock, saluted Southern Aurora is it swept by. ['trundled by' would be more accurate]
A pretty exciting event back in those days I'm sure!
I will repost what I said on another site two weeks ago so as to provide a link to the record made in 62.
The Southern Aurora was such a big deal in 1962 that it inspired a record that made it into the top ten. Complete with diesel horn. Not too many music recordings had that :
czcams.com/video/3XSmSERQakY/video.html
Pity the Joy Boys did not choose the more photogenic S class for the record cover instead of the plainer 44 class.
Traveled on the Aurora to Sydney and back on the early eighties for work. Took some convincing of work to save money sending me by train instead of a more expensive plane back then.
The recording is fantastic. It has a shadows feel to the whole recording.
4:17 Shhhhhhhhhhhh.......... Sleeping car! We have to be real quiet lest we wake it up. It gets grumpy if woken!😅
@Neil Forbes on the job that is LOL
@Neil Forbes the sleeper cars were also used on the goldcoast motor rail and the brisbane limited express both of them had fourteen carriages each
@@Mediawatcher2023 You can tell when a train with "sleeping" carriages passes through town....... Their snoring is bloody *LOUD!* 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
@@neilforbes416 you have really gone off the rails with that one LOL
That's an Elmer Fudd saying
just wondering how much HP was at the head of that train. I think the "S" is 1750hp, do believe the "P" is an upgraded "T", don't know the HP of either class.
I heard that the P class had broken down within minutes of being attached and so was just dead weight adding to the load.
The P class is 1100 horse power and the T class is around the same. As was mentioned the P failed on the trip to Melbourne which is clearly evident with the run through at Glenrowan as the train struggles up the hill
@@johnd8892 Correct: for the entire trip.
I know just the music track that would've fitted this video to a "T", It was *Southern 'Rora* by The Joy Boys recorded on Festival Records in 1962, but alas those Copyright Nazis would get in the way and you'd cop a copyright strike against you.😒
@Neil Forbes you can credit the track without a copyright strike i have tried it and it worked
@@Mediawatcher2023 You just haven't been caught up with yet. In order to use copyrighted music in your video, you must first apply to these organisations, *AMCO(Australian Mechanical Copyright Organisation)* and *APRA(Australian Performing Rights Association)* to seek permission to use a copyrighted track in your video *IF* your video is to be seen on public platforms such as CZcams, and you *MUST* acknowledge the TITLE, composer(s), performer(s), copyright holder(record company) and you must acknowledge AMCO and APRA for having given clearance for you to use the track. And there'll be a royalty fee attached so you won't get the track for free.
@@neilforbes416 AMCO comes under a different name now
@@Mediawatcher2023 No it doesn't! AMCO is, was and will always be AMCO, it represents the recorded music track on whichever media it comes.
@@neilforbes416 now known as APRA it always be that keep dreaming neil 😆