Bart Bear's Blog

Here's some pictures of our locomotive (that's an Oldies' word for train engine). Our engine was the biggest one I have ever climbed on. It is an NR class diesel-electric, one of 120 built in Australia in the late 1990s. This is some tough loco. It weighs 132 tonnes and is powerful enough to haul just on 1,000 tonnes. Our train wasn't that heavy. We had 16 passenger carriages and two car-carrier carriages and these weighed just over 700 tonnes. At times the engine could haul us at 100 km/hr, especially on the long straight stretch across the Nullarbor. The pictures were taken at a place called Cook, which is in South Australia, just about half-way across Australia. Cook used to be a busy town back in the days of steam engines, but now only a few people live there to refuel and water the trains. We had a stop there while our train was serviced. Scruff and I made friends with the drivers and we spent some time in the drivers cabin learning how to drive the train. It is a lot simpler than the steam engines I had a go at on other trips. See the bears in the window? Unka Mark, eat your heart out.

Labels: South Australia, train, trips