Six days after the rail-fanning trip described in the blog from 2nd April sees us back on the western line near Bacchus Marsh and then at Melton watching the procession of passenger trains "Up the Straight".
At 8:21am on Friday the 8th April 1983, sees S306 lead S315 elephant style on the 835 Up Overland towards Melbourne. Consist is 2PCO-Kuldalai-Charaki-Mokai-Purpawi-Yanni-Juki-Weroni-Club 1-Allambi- Paiti-2AJ-6BJ-2RBJ-10BJ-4BJ-1CO. The Overland is 5 cars longer than on the 2nd April 1983 perhaps reflecting holiday makers returning after the Easter break. There is still no motorail or parcels vans on the train.
At 8:56am the 8122 Up Ballarat pass. rounds the curve with teacup B74 in charge. Consist is a VBPY and set N2 (6ACN-5BN-4BN). Again this service is formed by a N set without a BRN (Snack bar). Later in the year this set will be broken up and combined with the cars from set N17 to form 2 sets of ACN-BRN-BN. All Ballarat trains were formed by N sets except for the midday 8115 (Down) / 8142 (Up) pass and the Friday evening 8145 (Down) pass. It was unusual for a Ballarat service to have a VBPY.
At 9:19am T406 rounds the bend with a Bacchus Marsh pass. Consist is 28BW-84BPL-85BPL-6BCPL. Note other photographers beside the line. Although the wooden carriage fleet was quickly being reduced it was still common for Bacchus Marsh passenger trains to be formed almost completely with PL cars.
At 10:21am T336 was on 8107 Down Bacchus Marsh pass with a consist of 33BW-28AE-22AW-29CE. As the wooden carriage fleet was reduced through withdrawals its wasn't uncommon for AE or AW's to be used as economy cars. Although not visible in this photo 29CE was riding on experimental 4 wheel bogies.
At 10:40am X52 back to back with X43 lead the 8130 Up Dimboola pass. This train consists of set N6 (18ACN-38BRN-17BN) with 2 VBPY parcels vans. It was quite common at the time for the Dimboola pass to be double-headed by X and S classes.
A B on the 8115 Down Ballarat pass at Melton (scheduled at 1:05pm). Loco and carriages not recorded but the consist is BWL-BE(a/c)-AS-BCE. At the time this was the only Monday-Friday service to Ballarat formed by wooden cars. On the 31st March 3BCE-1AS-50BES-75BW had formed this service so its possible that the same set was used on this day.
Super DERM 55RM was photographed at Melton on a Up Bacchus Marsh service. The time isn't recorded although i think that this would be the 8132 service which was scheduled to cross the 8115 service at Melton between 1:01 and 1:08pm
Railmotors formed the majority of services to Bacchus Marsh outside of the morning and evening peak. There was a shortage of serviceable railmotors at time with 3 of the DRC's at Bendigo being refurbished, this resulted in the super DERMs or spare passenger sets being substituted on runs scheduled for a 600hp DRC.
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