Talk:Victorian Railways

Latest comment: 15 years ago by Michael Johnson in topic Comment

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The article mentions that the last steam engines were withdrawn in 1972. However I quite distinctly recall hearing night steam trains on the gippslaand line in 1986. They ran coal trains out there at night as the gippsland coal fields had so much cheap coal it was cheaper to run the steam engines. They were a regular occurance. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.169.15.178 (talk) 07:25, 19 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

Perhaps you heard a fan trip, hauled by a preserved locomotive. The Gippsland line was electrified in 1954, and Gippsland coal is brown coal. Only two locomotives, R707 and X32 were ever converted to run on brown coal, and they were both converted back or scrapped by 1957. --Michael Johnson (talk) 23:37, 19 October 2009 (UTC)Reply