Y class on the Horsham Oil train

 

Y159 hauls the Up Horsham - Corio Block Oil Train past the way and works siding at Ballarat North.

On Tuesday 13th December 1983, an unusual sight of Y class hauling the Up Horsham block oil train occurred. Y159 struggled into Ballarat, running over an hour late with 12 empty oil pots, 2 VFJX as safety wagons and a ZF on the tail. Here yard pilot Y150 was added to train as banker up Warrenheip bank. Y150 returned to Ballarat 24 minutes later, with Y159 left in charge for the mostly down hill run to Geelong.

Y159 runs into the arrival and departure sidings in Ballarat yard. Yard pilot Y150 will be attached to front of the Y159 to assist the train up Warrenheip bank.

The block oil train to Horsham had commenced running in October 1983 and was usually hauled by B, X or T class but with the bumper grain harvest in full swing, a large proportion of the locomotive fleet was engaged in the movement of grain to the sub-terminals at Dunolly or Murtoa or the ports of Portland and Geelong. With a number of B and 1st series T class withdrawn for rebuilding V/Line was experiencing a severe locomotive shortage resulting in some unusual sightings. To help overcome the shortage, V/Line hired locomotives from Australian National (GM 23, 24, 27 and 28) and Westrail (L252, 253 and 257) for the standard gauge releasing 5 X class back onto the broad gauge. In addition a number of passenger services had there schedules slowed and had T class rostered instead of the usual mainline locomotives.

(Based on observation recorded in the Traffic section of Newsrail Feb 1984).

Y150 and Y159 depart Ballarat yard and will begin the climb up the 1 in 52 grade of Warrenheip bank after passing Ballarat East Signal Box.