The driver of the XPT gets a train order for the section from Orange to Dubbo. I resume my seat in the carriage and alight with my mother at Wellington. Intercut is footage of an XPT climbing through Dripstone, south of Wellington.
March 2005: I am shooting from the train hauled by Pacific class 3830 as it heads to Picton where it combines with the train led by 3801, passes tank engine 3112 and its train at the station, and heads off the Up track of the Main South onto the Picton Loop towards Thirlmere for the NSWRTM Steam Festival.
On the narrow gauge line (3'6"/ 1067mm) from Thevenard, near Ceduna on the western Eyre Peninsula, South Australia, trains run a continuous shuttle back and forward 70 kms between the port and the gypsum deposit at Kevin. The last train on the line 15 kms further to Penong ran in 1997.
The Dubbo-bound XPT leaves Bathurst, and after Georges Plains starts to climb the Tumulla Bank as the driver talks about a tragic railway accident and how he has had to live with it for two years.
On the morning of Saturday 4 October 2008, a crew member cleans the windscreen of FQ04 'Aboriginal Stockman' leading VL354 'Van der Hum' on the daily freight from Darwin to Adelaide at Alice Springs station, then the train emerges from the Heavitree Gap south of the Alice.
On the morning of Sunday 5 October 2008, ALF23 & ALF20 haul the Freightlink train at 20 kph south from Alice Springs round the bend through the Heavitree Gap. Full train takes 3.50 min to pass - 1.3 kms long.
NR74, Port Pirie, heads The Ghan from Adelaide through the Heavitree Gap north into Alice Springs. We follow the train to the station where the loco shunts the vehicle wagon to unload motorcars, and we look inside the private Prince of Wales carriage.
Cover by AJ Ronaldson. Paul McCartney was 24 in 1966 when he wrote this song for Jane Asher (featured in video) and included it on 'Revolver', the Beatles album for that year.
Six NSW country branch lines have closed since 2004. This song video looks at trains on two of these lines, at Lake Cowal on the Burcher line, at Whitton on the line to Willbriggie, and at Trundle on the still operating line to Tottenham.
April 2004: all aboard the Pichi Richi Railway for a ride from Quorn to Woolshed Flat, South Australia, behind one of the last steam locos imported into Australia from Beyer Peacock, Manchester, W22.
Blues by Jim Provencher on the journeying mind of English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge, author of 'The Rime of the Ancient Mariner', 'Kubla Khan', 'Frost at Midnight', 'This Limetree Bower My Prison' etc
1 PM Thursday 9 October 2008: a QANTAS jet comes in to land at Alice Springs airport, a black kite hovers and the Adelaide bound Ghan hauled by NR75 crosses the Stuart Highway.
The Dubbo-bound XPT leaves Blayney, as the driver talks about the container transfer facility, passing both the junction of the line to Cowra, Young and Demondrille (Harden) and the Frisky's pet food grain train on the siding at the Nestle factory just west of town.
![XPT West 6: Blayney, junction, Frisky\](http://img.youtube.com/vi/DMDFfkkbCmI/2.jpg "XPT West 6: Blayney, junction, Frisky\")
