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Yes, it does help to be slightly mad when doing this sort of thing, however it was also a trip to be remembered.

Doh, sorry about that. I think you my be right. Unfortunately all the trip notes from the trip were misplaced over the preceding years and despite an extensive search they have not been located.

Happy to spot the mistakes and be a useful subscriber

the line up from bourke through to cunamulla and then up to mt isa and across to tennant creek needs to built first-standardised with the gaps filled in -oh the tyranny of distance in oz-moving the produce of the nation to asia through flat countryside to a container port in darwin

At least there was hardly any one on the train while I was filming.

I'm glad you found the video

Thanks, Glad you liked it

Hi Helge, Thanks for your kind words. Glad to hear that the video is being viewed around the world, very nice. If you’re going to visit Darwin and the rest of the top end, do so during the middle of the year during the dry season. The wet season around Christmas is very humid and uncomfortable. I hope you enjoy your trip. Our visit to Larrimah wasn’t planned. Since doing this video, if I was to go back, I’d spend a lot more time looking around Larrimah and make the effort to go to Birdum now that I know what I missed.

@@DougRail Mate, thank you for responding. I've done Darwin a few times and you are spot on. There are this outback kinda free camping or BLM land in the area around Mataranka , its situated on the right side turn off when coming from Alice. I once bumped into an older gentleman there - telling him I was about to return to Brisbane for some gathering and then later on returning to the Northern Territory having a go at one of the national parks there. He looked at me and told me straight out - then Mate, I'm not here due to humigation and you won't be here ether. I did not understand at the moment. I had recently done the Cape doing the old Telly going up - then the developmental road going back down again and honestly it was a breeze . Even the Gunshot where pretty low on water. I tell you this- as a Viking used to lower temperature like 25 or more below zero Celsius, I'm pretty familiar with higher temperatures as well. Like one time riding my bike from Coober Pedy and my thermometer gave me the chills at 54'C In the sun of course - but what I'm trying to say that my body cope rather well after a day or two in the heat. This time I hadn't met the nasty two, the temperature and the humidity - together. Boy - was I put in place.I rode my bike from Alice to Mataranka in one day. Temperature where rather nice when leaving but finally at arrival I took my helmet off- nobody there. It was wicked as anything - deserted, no sound, light or any sign of humans - nothing, just me the frogs and the Roo's having a go at this place. Then it hit me - big time. The humidity and the temperature nearly knocked me off the bike. It is a very unpleasant place to be during the rainy season - another lesson learned as the older gentleman where indeed just right. I was in need of a go with the washing machine, I put my clothes on the hanger out in the sun to dry out. After 3 days - they where still wet due to the humidity . I ended up wearing them wet - walked them dry as the humidity was that bad and even hanging in the sun during daytime wasn't enough. Mate, your country is my favorite place of travel. I have done more than 80.000km on my bike and have been fortunate to have been able to stay periods of six months at the time.. I love the outback, the people and the smell of the desert - Australia is just one of its kind, fair dinkum. Thank's Mate for posting and again thank you for making the doku, I will have have a go at Larrimah as there are to much history to the place not to give it a visit. Best regards, Helge

@@helgaairhead Hi Helge, Hell, you know more about this part of the world than I do!! That humidity has to be experienced to be appreciated. It’s the only time I have felt dryer having a shower, than out of it!! I hope you get to Larrimah. The whole area between Larrimah and Darwin is particularly interesting. Cheers

​ @Doug Rail - Rado Mate, you'r dead on with the humidity - it has to be experienced especially for us living on top of the globe to really understand the effect it can have and cause during rain season. To me it was a shocker and one episode comes to mind - I was trying to get a hold of myself staying in the pool belonging to one of the caravan parks in Coober Pedy. I started to walk on the dry hot tiles and as my wet feet started to dry the heat from the tiles hit me big time causing me to turn around and desperately running back for me life - aiming for the pool again. Same up in Litchfield National Park - the heat and humidity was so bad I had more than enough coping with life. I have visited the Tree Ways and Daily Waters pub ( where all the ID's and nicker's where hanging as witnesses of a good time Down Under) - but again never Larrimah. On one of my trips from Alice to the Gold Coast I decided to take the Plenty Hgw yet again. At this stage I had done the Plenty two times on Helgaairhead , my Norwegian girl with 43l HPN petrol tank - this time i was riding my Aussie girlfriend which only provided me with 32 l petrol and some 14l of water. I was in a hurry ( normally at this time of the year i would have taken the paved road from Tree Ways going east) and drove from my favorite caravan park in Alice up to where the A87 turns right into the Plenty and just gave it a go. I had to stop at the Jervois Station Roadhouse for fuel. The woman there looked at me and said - you are the Norwegian, aren't you? Well, mam, yes I am. We have met two times before and she replied - you'r not going to Boulia , are you?. I told here so and she replied that there is nothing between here and Boulia as Toobermoorey have closed they're petrol pumps. What's the k's on your tank?. About 500 I replied -she put here eyes into me, shaking her head telling me there is 465 km between us and Boulia - sure you wanna go Mate?. ended up me baying some more petrol, filling up whatever can I had and she told me that the road had been closed for months due to rain and the wet season up north and no one have been trough the Plenty since they closed it when the rain season started.. Road condition unknown. I grabbed my fuel, my gps, sat-phone an my PLB - thank'd here for here support and just went on with my exploring. We made this deal that I had to call here within two days which would put me att Boulia or before if need bee. I had my rented sat-phone, plenty of water and newly served bike with extra fuel - as long as I where driving on the road according to condition - within the time set , I should be fine. I started a string on the GPS and compared to the map and they where k's apart from each other. What a shocker. It made me sober there and then. No room for gearshift in that episode I tell ya. I had to spend the night on the Plenty hgw, out in the bush with my Billy and my swag - a wonderful meeting with the shooting stars whilst laying in the warm desert sand connected to mother earth. What a feeling and lucky me to actually being able to meet all this nice people and they're culture, what a treat. Next day I packed the bike and headed for the border. After some hours of riding trough some magnificent terrain I finally met up with some road workers which where pretty surprised to see me chugging along - alone. We ended up having tee - talking about the road condition and they're hard work fighting the corrugation. I then told them about the old Telly and all the corrugation on the developmental road up towards the Cape - how it where chewing up suspension, leaving all sorts of vehicles beside the roads for dead. Now I have to stop writing, otherwise I would be sitting here pestering everybody with my travels Down Under- for a very long time. Thank you - all of you Aussies that took care of me and where a big part of my adventures Down Under. And yes - I did call here about my whereabouts. Blessings from Norway, Helge

Hi Marty, Those are crew cars. There are two sets of drivers. On pair drive while the other crew rest up. They charge over about every eight hours l think. The crew cars are not available for the public to ride on. Why there were two on this train is unknown to me. Possibly it was an empty movement. There was military equipment being railed to Darwin at the time of our trip so they may have been bringing an empty crew car up to Darwin ready for the Army guys to use on the return trip, but that's only a guess on my part. Cheers Doug

The 2 Passenger Carriages behind the Locos, one Crew Car would be for the Resting Crew, I say the 2nd Crew Car would've been a Spare in Darwin

That’s politicians for you. Make the announcement then sort out the details later. I’m just thankful that the standard gauge to Darwin got built at all.

@@DougRail A lot more politically than that, Hawke told Everingham that the Commonwealth would partially fund the railway from Alice to Darwin (50 per cent) at the completion of the Alice springs standard gauge line, Everingham demanded that the Commonwealth pay for it all. while we often hear the Sacred sites furphy, this was before Mabo and was literally not a gamechanger at that time. The joke is that it cost the NT Government much more money in the long run than if Everingham had have paid for it, and the Federal Labor Government would have increased the NT Budget which at the time it was almost 100 percent funding anyway to allow for the Payment of the railway! It should be noted the Federal Government spent millions. upgrading the Stuart Highway during that time period I suggest you also look at the railway yard disaster where they had a runaway ore train in the Darwin port area November 1972. Photos are rare as the Commonwealth Railways tried to cover it up, going to the extent of confiscating employee photos! The railway was shutdown by the Frazer Razor gang as a cost cutting exercise. My schoolfriends can vividly remember a school excursion where they caught the train from Darwin to Katherine in 1972/3 where the train trundled along so slowly that one could jump of the back carriage rub alongside the train and climb back in the front carriage.

Hi Harry, I'm not a truck person but it may be a Foden of some description possibly a S20 with what looks like a steel cab sleeper. Cheer's Doug

@@DougRail Hi Doug. Yes, I think you're right, the badge shape on the front grille is 1960s Foden.

Sorry Noel, I have no idea. These things are done through brokers. The brokers would try to consolidate your goods with other goods they needed to ship. Depending on what was being shipped, they would try and consolidate the loads of several customers into one container. If you literally owned your own personal 20 foot container that you wanted to ship from Sydney to Perth, that might be quite difficult to organise as a one off shipment. In fact, they may not be interested in doing it, or they might treat your container as a “load” and place it on one of their own container flats, like they might do for shipping a large piece of machinery. As to the cost, I’d suggest it would cost you several thousand dollars, but that’s only a guess on my part. A broker would probably be paying a lot less than that to ship one of his containers but in turn they may well be supplying all the containers on a particular train so that would drive the unit cost down. This is quite a complex topic, and I only have a very basis, layman’s understanding of it.

Hi Anthony, Sorry I can’t help you. We were lucky, a friend of ours was a driver operating up to Darwin at the time of our visit, but he has moved on since then.

Thanks Oskar. Good to know. And let's hope we never need a replacement carriage.

Hi Harish, I hope your trip is going well.

Because this is the line that they have extended the platforms at, to accommodate the longer train set.

It's the line with the most Comeng trains which haven't had life-extension refurbishment (ie they're the oldest and worst condition in the fleet), and it's also made to be used in conjunction with the high capacity signaling which will be on the Sunbury-Dandenong line when the Metro Tunnel 1 opens in 2025.

Hi Cam, I don’t have any information specifically about driver crash protection on the HCMT. I’d be shocked if there wasn’t adequate crash protection for the driver. The Union wouldn’t stand for it, and the operator and builders would have a very serious OH&S fight on their hands. The Union did raise objections to a number of matters related to the HCMT around training and automation, but as far as I can tell, none in relation to this matter.

Locomotive 1203 is an Ex Western Australia Government Railways (WAGR) 'A' class locomotive powered by an EMD 12 cylinder 567C prim mover.

@@DougRail you can just edit the reply

Sorry, I was having all sorts of problems yesterday with TH-cam's system

Thanks for being the first to reply to my first video, It is appreciated. I was considering waiting another 2 years, 5 months and 2 days to reply to you which is the amount of time the video went comment-less on the channel but knowing my luck I would forget 🙂 so I'd thought I better do it now. Cheers, Doug.

Hi Anthony. Glad you enjoyed it. I think you'll really enjoy your trip. Make sure you go in the dry season. Darwin is great place.

@@DougRail November 1 is our anniversary, for our 10th we were on the Savannahlander. A quick Google calls November as "the build up." Hopefully in the next 2 years i can find some live train tracking software plus timetables and photograph/video some trains on the way back. Anthony

Hi Daryl, Wow, Marree to Alice in 1979! That would have been some trip. Great memories to have. I hope you took some photos. Pity about the other trips you missed out on. They’re all history now.

@@DougRail Yeah, I have some photos, they are slides. It ran at something like 12mph for 500 miles, I left Marree on Monday about 3am (late) and arrived at Alice Wednesday around 1pm or so. I remember the train had a high water mark from the floods and the sides of the track was lined with beer cans and twisted rails from earlier incidents. Instead of clackity-clack-clackity-clack-clackity-clack, it was more like ta-da-dum……ta-da-dum……ta-da-dum… It rocked like a boat. The meals were excellent and the aircon was good. The loco was a single NT65 called “Gordon Freeth”. Many of the rollingstock had the cursive CR logo.

Hi D, The soft focus was courtesy of a light rain shower. You know what they say about Melbourne weather, a bit of a blessing in disguise in this case. My offsider’s choice of music is exceptionally good IMO. Thanks for your kind comments. Cheers D.R.

Hi Fire Red Rattler Roblox and more. Thanks for subscribing and congratulations on being the 100 subscriber. Unfortunately, no prizes for that! We hope you enjoy our videos. These Doug Rail Minis are not really what DR is about. If you haven’t already watched them, have a look at our Larrimah or Adelaide River videos to see the type of Videos we really want to make. Welcome aboard.