NSW Coal Trains 1997-98

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The following shots depict coal train operation in northern New South Wales during summer 1997-summer 1998.

Most of the mines in New South Wales lie in the Hunter Valley, approx two and a half hours north west of Sydney. This is also a popular wine growing area. Long coal trains bring the export coal to the port of Newcastle. This is one of the busiest lines in the country, and is quadruple tracked from Maitland to Newcastle.

A couple of shots are included of a train that runs to Stratford on the North Coast line. Unusually, it had quad 900hp 48 class on board instead of the normal double 82s. Upon arriving at the mine after 2 hours travel, they were contacted by train control to inform them that the mine was not working today and they had to return empty. That's progress for you.

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.