NSW Grain Trains 1997-98

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Apart from coal, grain is the other major export hauled by rail from north western New South Wales to the port of Newcastle. These shots were taken during summer 1997-summer 1998.

Many of the trains during these bumper harvests used mottley colections of grain hoppers hauled by everything from the lastest to ancient diesel power. Unfortunately I did not get many shots during the summer of 97, when all manner of decrepit GM and Alco power in a variety of paint schemes was raised from the dead and pressed into service. With the arrival of 120 new dash-9 spec locos for National Rail interstate service, the NSW State Rail system regained many of its more modern 3000hp 81 and 82 class locos back and was able to retire the older power for probably the last time.

All images are scanned from Fujichrome 100 slides. All photos by Darryl K Bond. Feel free to use provided you credit the photographer, provide a link to here and let me know!

Click on the thumbnail for the full size image. All are approx 100-150kb jpeg files.