April 2004: at Port Augusta South Australia a transcontinental superfreighter rolls past the shed housing Pichi Richi Railway W22. Following the railway we drive to Quorn where a Commonwealth Railways diesel heads a special back to Port Augusta.
On the narrow gauge line (3'6"/ 1067mm) from Thevenard, near Ceduna on the western Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, trains run a continuous shuttle back and forward 70 kms between the port and the gypsum deposit at Kevin. The last train on the line 15 kms further to Penong ran in 1997.
The driver of the XPT gets a train order for the section from Orange to Dubbo. I resume my seat in the carriage and alight with my mother at Wellington. Intercut is footage of an XPT climbing through Dripstone, south of Wellington.
April 2004: all aboard the Pichi Richi Railway for a ride from Quorn to Woolshed Flat, South Australia, behind one of the last steam locos imported into Australia from Beyer Peacock, Manchester, W22.
Six NSW country branch lines have closed since 2004. This song video looks at trains on two of these lines, at Lake Cowal on the Burcher line, at Whitton on the line to Willbriggie, and at Trundle on the still operating line to Tottenham.
The Dubbo-bound XPT leaves Bathurst, and after Georges Plains starts to climb the Tumulla Bank as the driver talks about a tragic railway accident and how he has had to live with it for two years.
Restored Australian Commonwealth Railways steam loco hauls the Old Ghan on the narrow gauge Pichi Richi Railway between Port Augusta and Quorn South Australia.
Blues by Jim Provencher on the journeying mind of English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', 'Kubla Khan', 'Frost at Midnight', 'This Limetree Bower My Prison' etc
