Hi all.

I promised Zoe a 'jammie drive' for after dinner -- something she loves and which we've had to make a treat rather than a last resort when she won't sleep -- and although she fell asleep by the time I got to the end of our estate, I headed off to the railway yards. I could hear lots of activity.

Upon arrival I saw the BOG (battery operated guard) or FRED (flashing rear end device), the thing that marks the end of a train,  off in the distance departing the yard at the Up (Sydney) end. When I reached that end of the yard I saw a PN employee re-setting Frame B which indicated that a train, likely a coal train, had just departed from the yard and this confirmed I really had seen a FRED/BOG.

A quick legal dash along Bell's Road, Oakey Park, saw me heading up to Zig Zag where I encountered 8253-8204-8171-8135 doing the honours on what I think was BB16, an up (loaded) coal train from Baal Bone colliery. It was unusual to see two 81s on a coal train in terms of recent practice, although it was quite common in the past.

Following this I headed back to the yard where I found 8104 and 48130 stabled in the yard. I heard rumours that it might have been train 8112 but there was no train to be seen.

I headed to Lithgow station where 8149+4877 were waiting in platform 1 with train 8136, a regularly scheduled up grain train. Following this I went to get today's Lithgow Mercury at the servo at Cooerwul which, surprisingly, found me paralleling the tracks west of Lithgow station on James St. 8163 showed up with train 7122, the up (loaded) cement train from Kandos. 8163 has been on this train several times this week: here is a photo from Monday (also visible, LEFT).

8163 and train 7122 had to wait outside Lithgow station for train 8136 led by 8149 and 4877 to clear the station itself.

A sleeping daughter and I headed back to the yard to discover that 8104 had disappeared without a trace but 48130 was still there, shut down and with red marker lights at each end. 

While driving the length of the yard looking for 8104, train 8136 pulled up on the Bank Siding. No sooner had they stopped when  8163 led the cement train past on the main, pausing at Frame B for a crew change before heading off into the night. 

Meanwhile, 8149 and 4877 cut off train 8136 and ran the New Yard to Frame B, then reversed onto a lone wheat hopper abandoned some time earlier. At this point the lovely wife SMS'd a summons home but I presume these locos added the wagon to the front of 8136 and took it to Sydney.

Post script:

For those who don't know, train numbers like 7122 and 8136 work like this: the first two digits represent the origin and destination lines for the train while the last two digits loosely represent the operator, but are basically sequential and semi random. The only rider on that: Up (Central) bound trains have an even number and down (outward from Central) trains have an odd number. 8=Main West origin. 7=Mudgee line (or "Short West", so Lithgow origined trains are also 7s), 1=Sydney, 9=Illawarra and so on. So train 7122 is running from the Short West to the Sydney area and is an Up train.

Coal trains are different: the first two letters represent the mine and the numbers are even for loaded trains and odd for empty trains. e.g. BB16 is a loaded train from Baal Bone.

 Addendum

I swung by the yard at 8:30 this morning (25/09) and found that 4877 was stabled next to the cripple wagon and 48130 had gone. So I reported it wrongly. As my ausloco buddy Don Allitt says, "never assume!"

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