Train Chase
Dec. 19th, 2012 11:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xenithHeading back to Queenstown, these are my photos (and phone video) from our train chase. On the Sunday of the Heritage Festival, they ran a train from Strahan to Queenstown to re-enact the "rescue train" from the mine disaster. We decided to chase it in. Not all the way from Strahan though :)
Our plan was to find a spot outside the town where we could wait for the train, and then race it back it back in with the car.
First problem was to determine when to get there. We worked how an approximate time of arrival at some point to the south based on how long it took the train to do the trip the previous day (when we were on it), a supposedly faster speed, a greater distance creating error, and that they might not stop to "change staff" at Halls Creek; and then aimed to arrive at our position 15 minutes before that.
Second problem, was where to wait. We decided to head south and see if we could find a place where the road came in to the track, using Google Maps (which helpfully doesn't show the road coming into the track, or has roads that don't appear to exist on it), phone navigation apps and road signs.
(This is photo heavy, even by my standards.)
Which is how we found the Tasmanian Specialty Timbers mill car park and there, a road that crosses the track. One slight problem though.
It was raining, and that didn't really look like a clever place to take a sedan. So we left the car in the car park, ready for a quick get away, crossed the bridge on foot and settled down to wait.
And wait.
No train yet. Surprising how many sounds resemble an approaching train, like a river.
Still waiting, and checking equipment. It had stopped raining by now, at least.
A couple of guys turned up, in the safety vests, and told us the train had just passed Rinadeena and would be another 15 minutes. Then they went further down the track and set up their camera.
Then some more people turned up, and we told them the ETA.
Checking for approaching trains.
The finally we heard the whistle. No, it's not. Yes, it is. No it's-- train!
This was taken on my phone (by Sam) while I took the photos below on the still camera.
And there she is past.
So we run back to the car (over the muddy bridge) and hit the road to try and catch her.
BUT THERE IS A CAR IN OUR WAY.
Still, we are moving faster than the train, and we soon see the smoke ahead and then behind us.
On the edge of Queenstown, the road into the old cemetery crosses the track, and this is where we go to wait next.
There was a wooden platform along the track left over from a ceremony involving the train and the cemetery on the Friday and that gave us a good view of the track.
The odd thing about waiting for a train, and I've had this happen on flat straight areas too, is there's no train in sight, no train in sight, and suddenly it's there. You have to be ready before it appears.
Train!
And it's past again, and we're running back to the car, and then into the town and looking for the track.
You can see the smoke of the train just above one of those houses on the left.
And we've caught her again.
Another phone video, this one from the car window so the quality isn't that good, but it catches the atmosphere :)
There's a few more still photos, but I was concentrating on the phone rather than the camera, as you can see.
We decided to get ahead of the train, and try to reach the terminus before it did
But the road moves away from the track and when we tried to get back to it, got caught at an intersection (as you can see in the video)
And they got ahead of us!
The end :)
Our plan was to find a spot outside the town where we could wait for the train, and then race it back it back in with the car.
First problem was to determine when to get there. We worked how an approximate time of arrival at some point to the south based on how long it took the train to do the trip the previous day (when we were on it), a supposedly faster speed, a greater distance creating error, and that they might not stop to "change staff" at Halls Creek; and then aimed to arrive at our position 15 minutes before that.
Second problem, was where to wait. We decided to head south and see if we could find a place where the road came in to the track, using Google Maps (which helpfully doesn't show the road coming into the track, or has roads that don't appear to exist on it), phone navigation apps and road signs.
(This is photo heavy, even by my standards.)
Which is how we found the Tasmanian Specialty Timbers mill car park and there, a road that crosses the track. One slight problem though.
It was raining, and that didn't really look like a clever place to take a sedan. So we left the car in the car park, ready for a quick get away, crossed the bridge on foot and settled down to wait.
And wait.
No train yet. Surprising how many sounds resemble an approaching train, like a river.
Still waiting, and checking equipment. It had stopped raining by now, at least.
A couple of guys turned up, in the safety vests, and told us the train had just passed Rinadeena and would be another 15 minutes. Then they went further down the track and set up their camera.
Then some more people turned up, and we told them the ETA.
Checking for approaching trains.
The finally we heard the whistle. No, it's not. Yes, it is. No it's-- train!
This was taken on my phone (by Sam) while I took the photos below on the still camera.
And there she is past.
So we run back to the car (over the muddy bridge) and hit the road to try and catch her.
BUT THERE IS A CAR IN OUR WAY.
Still, we are moving faster than the train, and we soon see the smoke ahead and then behind us.
On the edge of Queenstown, the road into the old cemetery crosses the track, and this is where we go to wait next.
There was a wooden platform along the track left over from a ceremony involving the train and the cemetery on the Friday and that gave us a good view of the track.
The odd thing about waiting for a train, and I've had this happen on flat straight areas too, is there's no train in sight, no train in sight, and suddenly it's there. You have to be ready before it appears.
Train!
And it's past again, and we're running back to the car, and then into the town and looking for the track.
You can see the smoke of the train just above one of those houses on the left.
And we've caught her again.
Another phone video, this one from the car window so the quality isn't that good, but it catches the atmosphere :)
There's a few more still photos, but I was concentrating on the phone rather than the camera, as you can see.
We decided to get ahead of the train, and try to reach the terminus before it did
But the road moves away from the track and when we tried to get back to it, got caught at an intersection (as you can see in the video)
And they got ahead of us!
The end :)
