its so fascinating how so much of the station has changed and yet stayed the same. brilliant footage showcasing a time from before i was born!

I always remember the 'little trains' on the Alamein line.

I rode this in the mid 80s!

The train driver used to sell the tickets through a window into the passenger area from memory. I used to live in the area and play at the tennis club next to the line at Ashburton. It was still a wooden station then and the station master would come out and manually switch the track. And there was one of those old 2 cent weigh scales on the platform. I believe when the station was upgraded that the station building itself was relocated to country Victoria. The song about the Alamein train being "a one carriage red" got some airplay on 3RRR or 3CR at the time.

Single car Taits were also used between Eltham and Hurstbridge in the early 80s. The ticket sales were done on board the train through a small window next to the driver.

The "Red Rattlers" live again on KZread. The Alamein line is interesting in that the original trains once ran south across the golf course to join up with Oakleigh line neat Hughesdale. Part of the original line south of Alamein is now a walking track. Also, many passengers passing through Hartwell on this line wouldn't know that the buildings were moved there from Walhalla, the old gold mining town in Gippsland.

@darylcheshire1618

4 жыл бұрын

At the golf course foyer there are or used to be aerial photographs of the junction at East Malvern

@adriaandeleeuw8339

2 жыл бұрын

Was known as the Outer Circle line, went to Fairfield and crossed the Yarra on the Chandler Highway Bridge entering the Clifton Hill Line at APM Paper Mills.

We had a double Saturdays and a single on Sundays from Eltham to Hurstbridge.....the double header was fastest thing on wheels

i used to travel on that for years we called it the ashy dasher 2 the original ashy dasher was a steam one

@albertweir5070

2 жыл бұрын

incidently the steam powered train ran on the outercircle line it was replaced when electrification was established on the Alamein line

I've been a frequent visitor to old Ashee/Alamein for nearly 11 years now and I've always be curious about it's rail history in general. It's pretty neat see a single tait car running around being all nippy back and forth. Pretty surprised about seeing the Harris set with another single Taiter. The line hasn't changed that much if all to be honest, the area has always been peaceful and tranquil (starting to question that now with gentrification moving in!) and the 80's variant looks like another world from a very long time ago..I guess the siding area maybe didn't have to worry too much about vandalism as it would in todays time. And I always thought that 2009 Ashie was nice but seeing an early to mid 1980's version is just breathtaking.....

@reidgck

4 жыл бұрын

Thanks for your comment. The two car Tait - with the driver trailer - in the siding at Ashburton with the Harris train, formed one of the two trains used on Saturdays. The other one car train you mentioned was a driver trailer parked at the far end of the line just beyond the Alemein platform. This driving trailer was paired with the one car train on Saturdays and ran in conjunction with the other two car train - they crossed about half way to Camberwell. On Sundays, the situation was as seen in the video..The two - two car trains were joined together to run as a four car train at other times The last return to Camberwell was just before midnight Sundays.. I was at Ashburton on one of these nights and the second last run from Camberwell arrived at Asburton. There were no passengers at that hour on the train and the crew was naughty, (driver and guard), they reversed back to the siding and attached the other two cars and then continued to Alamein. So, the final run to Alamein for the night, was an unusual three car consist with a motor at each end but with the motor on the Alamein end facing backwards. When the final run arrived back at Alamein the driver trailer parked there was attached. I think the train was then stabled at Alamein. -- Trivia maybe, but interesting to some enthusiasts who like to know such things..

When I lived in Ashburton they would run 3 car Xtrapolis on the weekends and off peak during the week. I only ever saw the siding used for track maintenance vehicles, although I believe that the siding has been decommissioned. I did write a song about the Alamein train line. It's on my KZread channel.

@Alexander_Dunn

3 жыл бұрын

They still do that and will be running 3 car sets for years to come

I think 470M is the only single car tait in preservation.

Good footage. Never knew one carriage trains ever ran except for parcel vans.

@reidgck

4 жыл бұрын

I believe a couple of these cars are still operational and are with with a preservation society

@kentlandzintoba

4 жыл бұрын

@@reidgck That would be likely given their heritage valuem

@smedleyfarnsworth263

Жыл бұрын

A single car swing door used to run East Malvern to Glen Waverley from the dock platform at East Malvern. The car was an ABM.

Ah, that's what the siding at Ashburton was used for

Newport to Altona on Sundays used to run a single rattler

@reidgck

4 жыл бұрын

Another ran on - I think the Hurstbridge line

Either 470, 471, or 472 M

Any idea when this was filmed? I remember taking the single car shuttle to Camberwell on the weekends as a kid. We'd also play around in the trains parked in the Ashburton siding as they were never locked. This was in the early 80's, just as the Comeng's were being introduced.

@reidgck

5 жыл бұрын

Would have been the mid to late 1980s

@comengsh

4 жыл бұрын

1983

At Ashburton on Sundays, the driver & guard on the first train in the morning would dock up an M & D set (motor - driving carriages) and run to Alamein, they put the D car into the dead of Alamein, which wasn’t track circuited. They would then start their first run from Alamein as a single motor car and the train would run as a single car run all day to the last train at night. On the last train at night the single car would hook back up to the D car and run back the Ashburton sidings and shut down for the night. What the train crews used to do was a short cut, on the second last trip they’d hook up the D car & run back to Camberwell as two cars, this was because when they ran the last train from Camberwell to Alamein, if there was no one on the train at Ashburton, instead of going to Alamein, they just shunt the train at Ashburton and go home a bit earlier. One time however they came to grief when they hooked up the D car & couldn’t get power to the D car and they had to cancel the last train to Camberwell & return. Why couldn’t they get power to the D car? The driver put the jumper cable into the dummy socket, oops. The VR had 4 carriages which had driving controls at each end. At the normal driving end, there was a booking office window facing into the passenger compartment and the guard stayed at that end and sold tickets.

I remember a lot of this line wasn't fenced.

@reidgck

6 жыл бұрын

This line from Camberwell to Alamein to is the only section remaining of the old outer circle line that stretched from the Heidelberg line at Fairfield to the Dandenong line at Hughesdale. Most of it can be easily seen as a long stretch of green parks on a street map.

@alanriley9754

3 жыл бұрын

@@reidgck The old Reg Hunt Rhodes used car yard on Dandenong Road was situated on the land formerly the outer circle railway.

@xr6lad

Жыл бұрын

@@alanriley9754 now a retirement home.

I wonder about the economics of this. What did it cost to convert the car to double ended versus the cost of running an attached “D” car. How long would it take to break even? Then we have to consider the loss of passenger capacity.

@mendocinobeano

9 ай бұрын

Back in the day they used to call it "public service obligation". Some stations, lines, bus services etc were kept running out of an obligation to the public regardless of any economics. Of course like everywhere else in the world that changed dramatically.

@smedleyfarnsworth263

9 ай бұрын

@@mendocinobeano I undsrstand what you are saying and I mostly agree with the principle. But that is not what I was refering to in my post.