As a child , I was a train nut, still am. I am also a survivor of a time when monsters ran on rails pulling freight and passengers to their destinations.
These times have past and the closing down of the railway freight yards within a lot of towns in New South Wales left no service to inland Australia, and it took with it the enchantment from people like myself who loved trains.
That is what this article is all about and why. Why did all the steam go?.Why was it necessary to close all the freight yards leaving nothing but the bones of signal houses, rotting sleepers, rusting rails all over New South Wales.
For some people it didn't matter, they went along with progress not giving a dam about the railways , but for little boys like me, it left me wondering why, why did it all finish, putting thousands out of jobs and why were locomotives by the thousand scraped for steel and large freight yards closed and the land sold to the highest bidder. I will tell you why in a couple of words IT WAS MONEY!!!!

There were a lot of freight yards in NSW employing thousands of workers who were laid off and told to find other jobs because the government that were in at the time decided that enough was enough, the time had come when it was too costly to keep the railways running at a profit, and they were going to change everything.
I personally think they didn't know how to run the railways because no one looked at the BIG picture. I will show you why!
In Sydney , we had DARLING HARBOUR goods depot where customers and clients sent their goods to their country destinations via the railways . Hundreds of rail cars stood stationary while driver after driver , myself included , waited patiently to drop their freight off directly into the rail waggons where employees would stack the freight up to the ceiling. Every piece of freight was stacked so it left no space left in the waggon to put anything else, then the doors marked and they started on the next waggon . At the end of the day, the goods waggons were shunted into trains for different directions and an engine usually steam pulled them off to their different country towns.
Along with this , were empty livestock cars that were needed in the country towns to take livestock to the city slaughter houses,there were empty metal waggons that were taken back to be filled up with blue metal and gravel, stone, granite and other types of minerals, full, oil tankers that were taken to the oil depots that were supplying the country towns with their oil and petroleum needs, steel cars full of steel products , general freight merchandise that needed fork lift or cranes to take them off and many other things that a country town would need to keep the place running.
When the freight arrived , customers would go down to the station and pick up their goods from the rail waggons while the tankers were delivered the the depot near the rail yards . I am not sure if the customers that required the empty metal waggons and the livestock waggons were charged for the return trip or not but I bet you a $100.00 that they were. So in summing this all up and taking into consideration the money that was made from all this activity , they were making a FORTUNE. Dollars and dollars were made from these activities and as the sixties drew to a close they said it was unprofitable. ARE THEY KIDDING ME!
When the DIESEL locomotive came in , in comparison to steam engines and electric locomotives , the electric locomotive was by far the cheapest with steam coming in dead last and because the electric overhead lines were not installed , the electric locomotive was only good where the power was so that's why the diesel locomotive came in. That explains why the change from steam to diesel in the sixties. A survey at that time had the electric loco running at $0.46 a mile , the diesel loco at $1.20 and the steam engine at $2.80 , so you can see why they decided to get rid of the steam engine.
But why did they get rid of the freight as well ? You guessed it MONEY!
When the diesel transport trucking system came into NSW, petroleum products were then carried directly from the oil terminal ,straight to the service stations located in the country towns. This by passed the need for fuel depots and they were all sold off to the highest bidder or the buildings pulled down or left to rot.
The general freight system that was hauled by train was then delivered directly door to door with parcels also being delivered the same way.
Not only was this cutting the price , but the parcels and goods were only handled once and the risk of damage was lowered.
The livestock was next to go with most farmers employing drivers of cattle floats to take the livestock straight to the slaughter yards, not loading and reloading as they did on the rail cars. ABATTOIRS in the country towns were shut down and sheep and cattle taken directly to the slaughterhouses in the city, so the need for people in these abattoirs became non existent.
Little by little because of the cost ,a giant network of people and machinery were given the flick, don't call us unless we call you . Rail yards were closed , people in the country lost their jobs, towns like Werris creek that were once covered in rail lines were left to the vultures , scrap metal dealers , buyers of machinery, and anyone else looking for a bargain.
It did not stop there, rail lines that once handled a lot of freight were shut down overnight leaving stranded passengers to then go by bus . slowly but surely the system closed down leaving NSW without a rail network to the country. Central railway terminal in Sydney only had a few daily trains to the major towns,and where it used to be a thriving station with people and nuns everywhere , it now housed the odd traveller and homeless people that had no where to go. Towns we bypassed completely leaving hundreds of stations without use, dying in the wind with tumbleweeds drifting past and icy rains leaving rotting timbers everywhere.
Even on the main line, stations with no use were left, the few express trains roaring past scattering them in dust, a dust that no one was going to clean up.
Now with the cheap air fares, people are bypassing the country town all together, way up in the sky drinking their cheap drinks and their cream puffs while country folk start to make scones and jam for the casual tourist that might come by while on holidays.
What has the future in store for these lonely outposts that were once loved by people like me, do they have a future?

When I was a little boy , I travelled on trains a lot , mainly interstate trains that were drawn by steam engines and as they rattled along I would stand near the entrance door and sing. As the song blended with the roar of the wheels , I felt a love like a security blanket , a love that never would go away.
The last time my heart ached for a trip away by train was only a few weeks ago , a trip to Scone in the north west of New South Wales. I had to go up there to photograph an old building and I had decided to travel by train and because
I am only a pensioner and cost was important to me.
I found out that there was only one straight train a day from Sydney going to the Scone area and that was the North West daylight to Armidale NSW . It was by bookings only and it departed at Strathfield station at 10am and arrived at Scone at 2.00pm in the Afternoon.
For people that do not know where Scone is ,it is in the heart of the hunter valley, around about 260 klms away.
The return train coming back from Armidale ,arrived at Scone at 1.30pm and there were no other trains.This was impossible because it meant I had to stay overnight in Scone just to take a photograph.
I checked the timetable for a train that went to Newcastle and there was one every hour, however there was only one train to Scone from Newcastle and that went at 5.30pm in the afternoon for people that worked in Newcastle. Also there was only one train from Scone to Newcastle and that was 5.50am in the morning. It looked like no matter what, if I went by train I would have to stay in Scone overnight. I eventually filled up my car and drove up with my wife and we made a picnic out of it. BOY! HOW THINGS HAVE CHANGED!!!
The people of NSW country towns decided in their wisdom to buy a lot of steam locomotives and rolling stock , and to obtain the rights to the lines that went to their towns and make historical societies out of them.
They had no help from the government at all and small towns like Dorrigo NSW are absolutely littered with rusting old engines that are sitting on rusted old railway tracks covered with cobwebs .
Today , the one and only train screams through tiny towns , hardly giving the town a second look and all the people that would have travelled by train sit in their cars .
Sometimes , I go back to the steam museum at Thirlmere NSW, and I especially go into the old passenger carriages with my grand kids and while they laugh and jump over the old seats I look at the door and remember the song as a little boy.

"IRENE GOODNIGHT IRENE , I'LL SEE YOU IN MY DREAMS"

Locomotive 3801 and its train of historic carriages have been maintained and operated for the past 20 years by the 3801 Limited company. The Company was established in 1985 to restore locomotive 3801 and support its operation for the enjoyment of the people of NSW. Prior to its restoration, locomotive 3801 was stored unused and rusting in a museum. In November this year, the lease of locomotive 3801 from the State Rail Authority will end and it is scheduled to be returned to the museum to face an uncertain future.