On one day every school holidays from the age of about 13, a group of friends and myself were allowed to travel to Bunbury (about 30 minutes away) for the day on the Australind. There would be about 6 - 8 of us and it was the day and age when we all promised we would stay together (and did) so we could go without parents. I am not sure you could do that these days but there are a lot of things you wouldn't let your kids do these days.Anyway, the train was superseded by one of those new fancy ones in 1987 but OUR Australind was the 'old' Australind and it had windows in wooden frames that opened and it actually made that clicketty-clack noise that seems to have been relegated to the history books. There were of course cakes and pies that you could buy once on-board - and even they seemed better than those served up today in their little plastic bags. And our Australind carried a tube that was exchanged out of the engine window to the station master every time it went by - whether it stopped or not. Never knew what was in there but it looked very important :-)
The photo is the only one I could find of the old lady and it taken at the Perth train station.
2 comments:
Ahhh you bought me back wonderful memories of the 'rattler' here. I think I will save it for my own post one day. Sometimes I think we now closet our children to much though I cant imagine letting Belle go off on her own with a group of friends
You wont get the "Clicketty- clacketty" nowadays as the rails are welded and ground, the only breaks are at sidings etc and the line are regularly checked to check for any faults.
Post a Comment