For you eagle eyed Gunzels No this isn’t 12A! Its 7A.
Ever since 1955, Volunteers have kept Puffing Billy going. One of the perfect examples of this was 60 years ago today, a cold wintry 1962 day, where locomotive 7A hauled the first public passenger train from Belgrave to Menzies creek in 9 years after 5 years of hard work by Volunteers and the Citizens Military Service to not only reinstate the line to Menzies Creek for regular train service, but also deviate the line around the landslide beyond Selby that closed the line in 1953. The headboard on the front of 7A said ‘Puffing Billy is Back Again!’.
(Photo by Weston Langford)
Since that day the railway has operated almost continuously ever since, barring covid.
The momentous occasion has been celebrated many times since. With the reopening train re-enacted in some form or another, with the 60th anniversary on July 28th 2022 being no exception. And for the first time since 1992 7A is hauling the special to Menzies Creek.
However, the locomotive cosmetically was not in good shape and is due for heavy workshop attention soon, so the Wednesday Night Workshops Volunteer Group under the guidance of Robert Reed and Andrew Fairweather decided to spruce the locomotive up ready for the special train the night before.
The locomotive had run the day before to clean the cobwebs out after a month and a half of storage as a standby locomotive. Once this run was completed it was moved into the workshops to get some cosmetics done to it and make it look as close as we could to that first trip 60 years ago.
For this we fitted a large electric headlight to it, the first time it has had one since late 2004, Transverse Jacks, Rounded Numberplates like the 1960s version and full set of marker lamps. We also repainted the smoke box and polished as much of the brass work as possible. In 5 hours, we turned a loco looking pretty sad into one that looks awesome and was a good way to tip our hats to the men and women that got our favourite railway going again in the 1950s and 60s.
This is also a prefect example of teamwork to make something happen, especially when it is a group of likeminded people all wanting to and sacrifice they’re Wednesday evenings to achieve the same goal, which makes this Railway very special.
A special thanks to the Menzies Creek Museum for allowing us to use the numberplate and headlamp for the occasion.
In the group photo is the team involved in 7As spruce up that were available for the photo Left to Right: Damien Woodward, Andrew Fairweather, Rodney Reed, Robert Reed, Lucas Woodward, Chris Reynolds, Ashton Edgley and Sarah Taig.
Comentários