Hobart trains

This leads on from the subject of the last post. I am fascinated with what it was like in Tasmania just before and after I was born. These are times that I can't or don't remember, but which aren't all that different in many ways to now.

I have mined the Tasmanian Archives for photos, and now I have found another great source, https://www.westonlangford.com. Mr Langford took photos, mostly of trains and bridges and other infrastructure, but also landscapes and of tourist attractions, between 1960 and his death in 2014. This site has over 38,000 of his photos taken in every state and also overseas.

from https://www.westonlangford.com/media/photos/103103.jpg
Commuter train north from Hobart passing the Royal Hobart Regatta grandstand,
24 May 1963

The beauty of the train pics is that suburban train services stopped in Hobart in 1978, eight years before I came here to live. In a short time the central rail terminus was demolished and tracks began to rot. So to find these pics with familiar and recognisable places still populated with trains is wonderful and strange.

The pic below with the little red and cream train particularly grabbed me. That bridge is still there spanning the Brooker Highway, and I had no idea it was a rail bridge. 

or that a line ever ran in that direction. This train is taking workers to the Zincworks, early one morning in 1965. I only recently spotted on an satellite photo that a line must have run in that direction.

https://www.westonlangford.com/media/photos/105398.jpg
7:10am passenger train from Derwent Park to Zincworks at Risdon
10 January 1965

Same spot last week.

I am honestly NOT a train nut although I can see why people are captivated by them. But it's true I am obsessed enough with these 1960s images to have made these 2 animations yesterday.