24 May 2010

HRSA General News:

Our last meeting was held at Peterborough where the Mayor made us welcome to their new facility.

Although no elections are due this year it was still the annual general meeting with the audited accounts being accepted . Mary Homan has ounce again been appointed auditor for the next twelve months and we thank her for her services.

An increase in fees was accepted due to costs associated with the maintenance of the Web site and likely increase in ATHRA fees. HRSA has to pay for each change/addition made to the Web site including the posting of NewsCast and reports from ATHRA meetings. This Edition has been delayed so that both NewsCast and a report on the ATHRA meetings on 12 and 13 March 2010 van be posted at the same time.

The General Meeting, in addition to handling miscellaneous business discussed at length the issue of the Lesson Plans currently with ATHRA. I have put considerable work into these documents along with Warren Doubleday and at present they are being retyped ready to go out for a second round of comment.

At the ATHRA meeting it was stressed that persons who will be customising the documents for their railway will need to hold the relevant portion of Cert 4 Trainer whilst those carrying out assessment will also need to have the relevant section of Cert 4 trainer.

How will this affect your railway?

Irrespective of how small or large your organisation is all persons involved with the l;esson plans MUST hold the qualifications otherwise you could find that you will have to use an RTO and you can’t afford that.

ATHRA is seeking comments from all concerned about this aspect of the package and it will no doubt be part of the discussions at the next HRSA meeting to be held on 15th May. Please ensure that you delegate(s) are aware of any issues from your railway so that they can discuss the matter at the meeting.

Derek Heneker spoke about the on going mov towards a single rail regulator in Australia with that position being based in Adelaide. A meeting between HRSA and his Officers is to be held in May where hopefully discussions can take place about the proposed changes to the Legislation to nonce outside bodies to be part of Interface Agreements particularly in relation to level crossings.

John Evans spoke of discussions he will be having with the various groups in relation to their “show stoppers” – if an event happened that would stop the railway what then? Also about which parts of Marketing can best be handled individually by the groups and which would be better handled jointly. Following the meeting an inspection of the new facility was undertaken

Reports

As this was the AGM the following report was presented by myself as President

In February 2009 a new Constitution for the T&H sector in South Australia was adopted changing the name of CHRTSA to Heritage Rail SA Inc. (HRSA) was adopted and subsequently approved by the SA Consumer Affairs Department.

At the same time elections took place for Office Bearers with myself becoming President in lieu of Treasurer, Ian Seymour became Secretary and Peter Soar, who had been Secretary, became Treasurer.

HRSA members are: Cobdogla Steam Friends John Reed and Neil Craig, Murray Bridge Wharf Steve Moritz and Gus Munro, National Rail Museum, Bob Sampson and Ron Fluck*, Peterborough Ian Milne**, Pichi Richi Richard Wood and Bryan Homann, SteamRanger: Peter Soar and Brian Busch, St.Kilda Tram Museum Ian Seymour and Michael Crabb. Milang Station Museum are also financial members of HRSA but have not attended any meetings in 2009.

• Ron Fluch advised of his retirement from HRSA late in 2009 having served on the Committee since its inception. NRM are as yet to advise of a replacement.

** with the completion of the project at Peterborough in November 2009 Ian Milne retired as an employee of that organisation and at present the Peterborough Council have to advise of their representative. Daryl Harvey as their volunteer officer is the current contact

Part of the revised Constitution included the activation of a Committee of Management and whilst this had been previously provided for it did not meet.

The first requirement after the election was to call for a further two members for the Committee and at the close of Nominations the Returning Officer has received nominations from Ian Milne, Peterborough and Bob Sampson NRM both of whom were declared elected. The Committee of Management has met and conducted a number of business issues taking the results to the main meetings of HRSA. A report covering Committee meetings is presented to each HRSA meeting.

There is also provision for sub groups or committees and currently Marketing Group has been formed meeting once in November. At this meeting the members took away several issues for consideration and also a call for representation on this group from those members who do not currently have a representative. At the time of preparation of this report that group is still to have its second meeting. Not a lot of activity has occurred with the Rules Group although RISSB did send out a document for review at the time of my absence interstate ion October last year. I did make a submission which has subsequently been acknowledged. I am not aware of any other group or ATHRA member group having made submissions.

A big task from ATHRA has been the review of lesson plans as sent out mid year. What does not appear to have been accepted is the fact that these lesson plans, once developed and generally available to the T&H sector should alleviate the need for the use of RTO’s by the T&H sector None of the T&GH groups are able to afford the cost of an RTO at least in this State and probably within Australia.

The first review of the lesson plans has been undertaken by Warren Doubleday and myself as ATHRA representatives and these are now ready for a second round of reviews. Funding for furthered lesson plan development is now being sought. CHRTSA has in the past been involved in “State of Steam” an event held in Rundle Mall biannually to promote the T&H sector in SA. In the past most of the planning and set up has been carried out by paid staff from NRM and Pichi Richi and to a lesser extent SteamRanger. Previous personnel who performed this work are no longer employed by their respective organisations and hence a need to establish a volunteer group if we wanted to avail ourselves of the Government assistance “on offer. I made a conscious decision that HRSA had no alternative than to proceed with the event and actively sought assistance from member groups.

It has taken some time to get up and running with most of the initial work of establishing a date and venue being carried out by myself. We have also printed and now have on distribution a DL flyer for the event. Friends of Cobdogla Steam Society also decided to take an active part in the event and have made available their steam locomotive including arranging transport to and from the event. Great Southern Railways have again donated a trip for two initially on the Ghan but now looking to allocate travel on the Indian Pacific for a lucky person who fills out a form at the event. The sub-committee is schedule to have a second meeting in mid January where a start will be made in ernst to plan the event and all things associated with it. Committee members are: SteamRanger Peter Soar, Pichi Richi Barrie Letheby, NRM Geoff Smith Ian Milne who has now “retired” from Peterborough and myself representing HRSA.

John Evans is also an attendee Tourist representing Tourism SA whilst Great Southern Railways are attending. Shylie Edwards from NRM has aklso offered to assist with promotional material having had a big input in the past. The event is scheduled for Thursday 6th to Sunday 19th April 2010 which is the last week of the school holidays and is one day longer than in the past. I continue to represent HRSA on ATHRA and in additional also serve as Secretary of that group. Ian Seymour is HRSA’s “second delegate” with a decision having been made at the October 2009 meeting to allow the second delegate to have a vote in their own right at ATHRA meetings. The ATHRA Awards were presented at the October 2009 meeting at Ipswich by the Queensland Minister for Transport.

South Australia submissions for Infrastructure (NRM and their water column and tank stand) and SteamRanger (Peter Soar for Excellence Award) were both successful. Meetings of HRSA continue to be held in rotation and on a quarterly basis this year meetings were held at Railway Park Prospect sponsored by SteamRanger, Cobdogla, Murray Bridge and St.Kilda with the first meeting in 2010 scheduled for Peterborough. As President of HRSA I represent the Tourist and Heritage sector on the State Level Crossing Advisory Committee.

My first meeting was only several days after being elected to the position. At that meeting it was advised that additional funding from the Federal Government meant a need to re-allocated State funding for level crossing upgrades. At the following meeting advice was given that funds had been allocated from the Federal sector to ARTC whilst the State funds had generally gone to GWA with some to Trans Adelaide but nothing for and heritage. Whilst I could not argue against the need for protection on some of the Loxton line level crossings it was a disappointment to find that the T&H sector had been totally ignored.

During the year a meeting was arranged between HRSA and the Rail Safety Manager and his group to talk about a number of rail safety issues of concern to all groups. One major issue is that relating to interface agreements and we still wait on promised Legislation which will require Local Government to become active in this area instead of ignoring the problem as not being their responsibility.

Following a number of comments about “rang and file” members not being aware of HRSA and ATHRA in south Australia I introduced a “NewsCast” for distribution to all HRSA members and to the general ATHRA group in the hopes that this information would be sent further and hence increase the awareness of the T&H sector not only in SA but throughout Australia. Following the first issue it was agreed by the Board of Management to publish the member reports to each HRSA meeting so that generally there was advice about who was doing what. This has continued and in addition a “NewsCast” was published following the ATHRA meeting also for Australia wide distribution. Consideration was also given to publishing a list of tours and T&H activities for the benefit of all T&H members. Unfortunately there was vey limited positive response to this hence it has not been proceeded with.

Member Reports

Cobdogla

750 sleepers have been cut and drilled. Over 400 fishbolts have been refurbished with the threads recut and new bolts and washer fitted. The remainder will be done as time permits. Boilers have been stripped and waiting inspection The twilight runs held during January were a great success and people enjoyed the rides in the cool of the evening.

National Pail Museum Overland Event – Sat/Sun 27/28 March 2010

As an added attraction to the completion of the restoration of V&SAR joint stock Overland Sleeping Car Allambi and Intercolonial Express Travelling Post Office Van 18, a special event will be conducted on this weekend. Both cars will be unveiled at 2.00pm Sat 27 March. Special trains as symbolic Overlands will be running both Sat and Sun, formed by 801 + BE42 (V&SAR sit up) + Allambi + 12 whl brake van 276. Great Southern Railway has offered two tickets on the Overland as a free entry prize – to be drawn that weekend. A new photographic display featuring 20 scenes of Overland through the decades will be available for viewing.

TransAdelaide Operational Interface

Final versions of the TA/NRM Interface Co-ordination Plan and TA/NRM Rail Interface Procedure have been prepared for execution to satisfy both TA and the Rail Safety Regulator – a task that has taken three years. A new multi-gauge turnout and realignment of the TA/NRM interface is part of these new arrangements – in affect providing an additional 100m head shunt room of narrow and standard gauge shunt movements and train running.

Celebration of 30 Years of TransAdelaide 2000 class ‘Jumbo’ Railcars

On the weekend of Sat/Sun 22/23 May 2010, SA History Week, NRM will be holding a special event to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the TA 2000 class railcars, in addition to a celebration of 85 years of urban railcar transport. SAR 55 class No.8, 75 class No.41, Blue Bird 257 will be joined by Trans Adelaide two-car 2000 set - all on display. The 2000 series will be open for inspection. Also NRM will be operating its three car Red hen railcar set for rides both days. A new photographic display of Adelaide urban railcars will also be available for viewing.

Pichi Richi Railway

Membership:

2010 membership renewals have been steadily flowing in, together with member donations, some for specified projects (Car 5 Restoration, Coffee Pot Replacement Boiler and Yx141 Restoration) and the remainder unspecified.

Traffic:

Timetables for 2010 have been distributed widely and updates to our working timetable have been distributed to our Safety Critical workers. Worker ID cards are now in use, and we are developing our internal processes to include approvals on these cards. The 2010 Timetable has been uploaded to the PRR website with online bookings coming through ever since.

Marketing:

Through our marketing officer Lisa Pearson, assisted by Barrie Letheby, there have been some notable successes in advertising, coming events and the successful Yx141 Lottery (drawn November 14, 2009). Some events involving PRRPS include Adelaide Caravan & camping Show (24-28 February) Tastes of the Outback (16-26 April), Steam-Up (24-26 April) and State of Steam in Rundle Mall (15-18 April). Positive meetings are continuing with Flinders Ranges Council and Quorn community representatives on the relocation of the Quorn Visitor Information Centre to the Quorn Railway Station. A valuable outcome from this initiative may be the station being open 7 days a week with the appointment of a full time manager for this site.

Locomotive:

Our summer maintenance program on our steam and diesel fleet is progressing, with both NM25 and W22 having had machining done on the motion. Vesconite is being trialled on W22’s bushes. All boilers washouts are completed and are due be inspected for the coming season by Bernie Dickinson. Restoration on Yx141 is continuing with the cab now fitted. With plans for the new fabricated boiler for the Coffee Pot are almost complete, the next move will be to engage a local contractor (hopefully at Port Augusta) for this work. The rear floor section of the loco workshops at Quorn was successfully concreted by a members working bee in the third week of January. This will greatly improve the use of this area.

Track:

Re-ballasting and packing of the Stirling North triangle following flooding in November has been completed. Several steel sleepers were inserted in the Quorn leg of the Woolshed Flat triangle in October following a minor derailment of NSU52. An early track scheme is needed early this year to replace sleepers between Curve 27 and Woolshed Flat. The annual track walking inspection is planned for March, concentrating on WSF to Port Augusta. Carriage: Work is continuing slowly on refurbishing car LIGHT, as is the restoration of Car 5. A shortage of volunteers is slowing these projects, and it is likely that the buildings at Woolshed Flat will continue to be used for serving refreshments to passengers on our Explorer service.

St.Kilda

E class Tram 118 will hopefully enter public service at the museum on the Sunday 23rd of May 2010 after a very intense restoration programme to strengthen the chassis members and replace many missing body items and under gear, large and small , to name but a few things ,removed from the tram when it was sold off in the late 50’s to become a beach shack north of Port Broughton.

We intend to hold our AGM , which a few of our interstate members regularly attend, the day before making their weekend in Adelaide very full Work is proceeding well in the airbraking of A class trams 14 and 15 to recreate the WW2 coupled Bib and Bub sets. A class trams were never airbraked trams, only a handbrake which when coupled only worked on the front car of a set and a very severe magnetic brake working on both trams, but our trucks underneath the trams do not have the magnetic brake gear. We are using brake cylinders from scrapped Melbourne W class trams and brake valves salvaged from “bush “ wrecks and shacks Work has commenced on the removal of track and overhead wire from the section of track past the concreted track at the playground.

The track work had deteriorated over the year plus the dangers of un controlled people at the playground crossing our tracks at the playground accelerated this closure. Work is progressing on the cataloguing of items in the museums archives using the “Mosaic” programme to document these items. Some members not normally on the site with the “Friday “ have been devoting time to this along with our outside assistant Maree Treloar Financially the museum is doing very well largely due to passenger numbers rising along with charter work and a very concerned effort by new member and Secretary Andy Hall’s work in the bookshop expanding our range of items

SteamRanger

SteamRanger was scheduled to operate daily from a week before Christmas with the exception of an odd day, to the end of the school holidays on 27th January. Unfortunately the hot weather, and on a couple of occasions, in correct forecasting meant that we lost 7 running days due to the forecast temperature being 35 degrees or over, On one day it was forecast to be 36 and reached 24 whilst the next day it was forecast to be 26 and reached 33 with rain thrown n in. Whilst we were not directly affected by the Down Under Bike race this year indirectly we lost 2/3/ for our income at Goolwa on 22 January due to local road closures and the inability of our patrons to ain access and parking at the station.

All of our services continue to be provided by 507 with suburban cars, the red hen set of 412, 428 and trailer 824 or Brill 60. Overall our income was down $13K on last year when we only lost one day due to heat. The Alexandrina council in conjunction with DTEI has decided to realign Airport Road level crossing in the Currency Creek Goolwa Depot section but is refusing to upgrade the current passive Give Way signage to active protection or at worst to a Stop sign. WE have has considerable differences of opinion with the Level Crossing unit over this brought about due to their claiming that the track speed is 40 Km/h of less.

The normal track speed is 80 Km/h for some rollingstock with a current restriction of 50 Km/h t the location due to condition of top which with the purchase of a main line tamper will be lifted later this year. So much for responsibility at level crossing by other interface parties. Similarly the Mt.Barker Council is ignoring our request for them to close Fletcher Rd Mt.Barker following an accident in October where an errant motorist failed to yield at the give way sign. This crossing had been equipped with Stop signs but the council illegally removed them some years ago and refused to replace them.

Our 2009 Rail Safety Audit was conducted on train on Friday 22 January 2010 and at Mt.Barker on 23 January 2010 over a full day. SteamRanger has a difference of opinion with the Auditors over Management of Change. The Airport Road relocation is a change being forced upon SteamRanger by the Alexandrina council with the support of DTE who have not provided SteamRanger with an appropriate risk assessment yet we are expected to have documented issues such as changes to the documentation listing the location of the crossing and ensuring W boards are relocated.

This in our view shows the “one sided” approach to interface issues on the railways. It was also claimed that our change management for the devilry of our second hand main line tamper was not correct. It appears to SteamRanger that there is a need for some agreed guidelines between accredited groups and Rail Safety for the handling of this element of the Regulations Work continues on the return to service of Rx 207. All loco wheels have been retired and returned from Heavy Mech to SteamRanger with the tender wheels due back now. All loco springs have had to be sent to Industrial Springs for some heavy repairs are now back but all requiring the machining of new bushes and pins.

SteamRanger is engaging fitters to carryout this task. We are currently attempting to source funding for 621 so that flues and tubes can be purchased and installed. Some work is required to ream out some holes in the front tube plate. Approximately 4 months work will be involved if and when funding is approved. 958 suffered a failure of one of its radiators at the end of the 2009 Southern Encounter running. Attempts to sauce a replacement throughout Australia ands Canada proved unsuccessful so a local firm has been engaged to manufacture a new radiator using the existing box and header tanks There will be an increase in some fares from 1 April 2010 and at the same time the introduction of cash register tickets at Goolwa in line with the change some 12 months ago at Victor harbor.

Edmondson card tickets are still handed out as souvenirs but the system improves accounting and record keeping for our Cockle Train revenue. Bookings for trains from Mt.Barker are handled through our booking system with passengers being able to book on line Planning continues for a SteamFest between Goolwa and Victor harbor on the weekend of 29 and 30 May 2010.

Three will be displays at both Victor Harbor and Goolwa with trains running between the two locations on a frequent basis and involving crossing of trains at various locations. Both the Alexandrina and Victor Harbor Councils are sponsoring this event and a lot of work is being done in support t of the event by their officers. SteamRanger is also planning a tour of North Queensland in October.

Passengers find their own way to Townsville then travel by train to Mt.Isa, bus to Karumba Point and return to Normanton, train to Croydon then bus again to Cobbald George and return to Forsayth before again travelling y train into Cairns. Train up the range to Kuranda then bus through Mt.Molloy to Mossman and Port Doulas for a ride on Bally Hooly and return to Cairns with a dinner that night then own arrangements for return on Monday.