Empty Nester

On Monday we packed up the car and drove to Sydney with my son’s possessions.  We overnighted in Beresfield.  Tuesday night we unpacked his stuff at his share house in Glebe, and we drove to our hotel.  The Hotel was just about a 500m walk from his house.  I was amazed that when driving down Glebe Point Road there were tram tracks in the bitumen!  I knew that there was the old Tramshed a few km away, but I had no idea that trams ran down that road.  I later walked to the Tram Shed, and there is a tram sitting in one of the roads in the shed.  There is still plenty of track embedded in the car park.  My son starts work in about 3 week's time down in Sydney.

The Tram in the Tramsheds

A Three way in the carpark

More rails in the footpath

A sign to its past

I took the opportunity on Wednesday to catch the tram to Central and watch the Indian Pacific arrive into platforms 1, 2 and 3 over an approximate 45 minute period.  I find it very perplexing that the shuffling that occurs once the passengers have boarded and the various consists on the platforms depart to the outskirts of the station and the loco that brought that train in, goes to another platform to remove the next section of the train to outside the platform.  This complex shunting movement seems over complicated.

The main board at Central

Ther arrivals board showing the three sections on the IP

The first section arrived, and disconnected the locos.  They ran to the end, while the shunter changed the points

The Locos are running around the consist in platform 1.

The second part, arrived in Platform 3, with the second train loco.

The Locos from the first consist, attached at the front and are pushing the carriages back to the stop blocks in Platform 1.

The third consist arrives in Platform 2.

This section was the last to arrive, but first to leave.  Then loco then follows the section out and then attaches to the cars in Platform 3.

This section in Platform 3 leaves, and loco follows the train out.  No doubt this then goes over to Platform 1 and then takes that section out of the platform to the yard where they are all joined up.

The station Schematic of Central

On Thursday I caught a train from Central to Circular Quay so I could ferry over to Greenwich, as I wanted to walk past my father's family home in Chisolm Street.  I took a couple of photos and then walked back to the ferry terminal for the trip back to the city.  I had a good chat to a couple of old Fisherman casting off from the jetty.  They were having great success and go there4 every Thursday.

On Friday we heard from Arthur, that a local hobby shop, fairly close to us in Brisbane – HobbyOne had closed its doors.  It appears that it is doing mail order.

We drove back today from Sydney and normal programs have resumed in the household, all be it with one person down.