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Emailed this to some friends today, as a Victorian was asking about the "LS" coal trains:
LS77 runs to "Lidsdale", just outside Wallerawang, past one boundary of the power station on the main and then after the junction, along another boundary of the power station.
It follows the old Lidsdale colliery line around the right/northern fork of a wye and when the train engines reach the stop block and the lower quadrant
semaphore signal set permanently at stop, out in a paddock, it reverses down
the western fork of the wye (really the straight rail of the wye). Depending
on the driver and the loaders, it either runs in reverse to the end of the
tracks and draws forward for loading OR it loads while reversing then draws
forward. Loading is by front-end loader off stockpiles at ground.
Once the loading is complete the train draws forward around the eastern leg
of the fork and stops at the home signal just across the road from the power
station. From there it's just a short run to the main line.
The coal is from Springvale Colliery which the train passes some kms before
the power station when on the down run, and is carried by conveyor belt to
the Lidsdale loader. It's also carried by conveyer to the power station and
over the hill to Mt Piper Power station as well. Springvale is owned by
Centennial Coal who also own the (modern-day) Angus Place Colliery (a mine
of the same name was once served by a branch off the Lidsdale branch). Often
Angus Place wins a spot contract to sell export coal but it has no
connection to the rail loader so they basically sent Angus Place's coal to
Mt Piper Power Station as if it were Springvale coal and the equivalent
amount of Springvale coal finds itself on the train. It's not a deception
thing but an accounting thing.
The coal loader to which I'm referring is known in older railway books (and
to older railway personel!) as the A&B siding or the "Austen & Butta", as
the business partnership by that name built the loader in the late 60s/early
70s and realigned the Lidsdale branch to suit the wye they put in. Until
that time, the line was a trailing junction for down trains and all coal
trains off the Lidsdale branch were made up in Wallerawang yard. A&B put in
"Cox's River Junction" (so named because it is at the railway crossing of
Cox's River!). The old alignment from the north end of the wye through to
Wang station is still visible if you look long enough.
Peter Attenborough wrote a terrific article in the early 90s covering the
line in its early diesel days in Australian Diesel Scene from Eveleigh
Press, i think #2 or #3.
I've concocted a map of the line, showing points of interest including the
old alignment and the location of Springvale Colliery at:
http://bit.ly/AandBSiding
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