Midday at Ballarat

Ballarat can busy in the hour or so leading up to lunch. Below is description of this activity from today's operating session.

At 10:50am X48 leads S305 elephant style on 9146 Adelaide - Melbourne express goods runs downhill into Ballarat. After a short pause to change crews, X48 and S305 begin the battle up the grade to Warrenheip.

At 10:55am 942 glides downgrade through Ballarat East with the Ballarat pass. 942 is in Ballarat for a weeks crew training in preparation of the introduction of through running of 930's on the Overland and interstate jets.

942 leaves the N set in no.1 road and runs to Ballarat East via No.2 road where it is stabled off the turntable. It will be used later in day for crew training run on the 383 Ballarat - Ararat Roadside Goods.

At 11:05am T388 runs through Ballarat North on 222 Nowingi - North Geelong goods. 222 runs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, with the corresponding down services (227) scheduled for Tuesday and Thursday. 222 runs through No.4 road at Ballarat station and into the arrival and departure sidings in Ballarat yard. The train will be held at Ballarat until after the departure of  8134 Ballarat - Melbourne pass at 11:45am.

At 11:12am DRC43 crosses MacArthur Street level crossing on the Donald - Ballarat Railmotor. This service only recommenced fortnight earlier on the 14th August, being an 1982 election commitment by the Cain Labour government to restore daytime passenger services to Donald.

After passengers have disembarked DRC43 runs to Ballarat East for refuelling. It then runs back to Ballarat to stable in the carriage sheds until it scheduled return service to Donald in the afternoon.

With no mainline locos present at Ballarat T321 is rostered to run the pass back to Melbourne. The T is likely to struggle to maintain the schedule which is designed for mainline locos. This is T321 first run on a passenger train having only joined the layouts loco fleet in March. At 11:45am T321 departs for Melbourne on the 8109 pass.

After the pass clears the section Ballarat East to Warrenheip, T388 departs with 222 Nowingi - North Geelong Goods, here its seen struggling upgrade through the cutting just past Ballarat East loco.

Right on noon T401 glides downhill through Ballarat North on a short 392 Pittong - Ballarat Goods. The train only has 3 wagons, an VOAA open wagon loaded with containers, a AQBY flat wagon and a VLCX louvre van.

At 12:10pm Y152 on the workshops pilots pushes a VHGY, HR loaded with bogies and a BE passenger car towards Ballarat North workshops. The BE is in for brake repairs, the VHGY for a lift with the bogies on the HR likely to be used under wagons already under repair at the workshops.

The Y pushes the train into the workshops compound before coupling to a rake of repaired wagons on an adjacent track. The rake includes a Australian National ELX, S flat wagon, GH hopper wagon and a VHCA cement hopper.



The Y then returns to Ballarat with the wagons released from the workshops. These will be added to appropriate trains in Ballarat.

 

In a hour and half, seven trains have operated through Ballarat. There's then a lull in activity for just under 2 hours until 8115 Melbourne - Ballarat pass arrives at 2:20pm.