STEAM AT WAR 7




The crossing station keepers were bunkered about half way along their sidings and about 100 metres out from the tracks. The greatest horror of the station crews was the arrival and stopping of troop trains when 500 troops who had been cooped up in box wagons would detrain en mass and stoop and crap. The drill that evolved was to stop and hold such trains outside the station yard limits until everyone had crapped out. In the full spirit of "not in my back yard" many ruses were practised by station staff to ensure that such trains were kept rolling past their territories. Station crews established for themselves reasonably good long-drop dunnies that were frequently invaded by passing troops who tended to leave them less than pristine. So the owners would plaster the door with prominent "Beware of the snake" notices and construct a second edifice with a "Safe for use" sign for the peace of mind of the visitors.

While on this subject, one of the stations bore the name "Gundagai" for which the staff had prepared and erected a large name board featuring a dog crouched in an ecstasy of relief over a wicker tucker box. I remember the staff of an ambulance train appreciating this example of desert art.

There were very few if any train crews that escaped without adventure of some sort. To add to my runaway ride from Mohalfa to Similla I was to experience a near miss on the same section but travelling in the opposite direction. The line traversed wadhis that were natural drainage channels from the plateau in the wet seasons. Where track embankments crossed the wadhis two or three 2 metre diameter concrete conduit pipes were laid through the earth fills to provide escape for the water that would otherwise back up. One very wet early morning we had departed from Similla with the usual fully loaded train with banking engine shoving at the rear. After covering 25Km with everything going well and first light of day showing features dimly I spotted an irregularity in the rail alignment about midway around a curve to my side. The track was hanging suspended across a thirty-metre gap in the embankment. I yelled this intelligence to my driver who suspected that I was kidding, and did not immediately react. I cranked on the tender hand brake and shut down steam valves that were my responsibility and clambered out onto the cab steps prepared to take my chance and jump off. He crossed the cab, saw and sprung to action. He slammed the throttle shut and steam brake full on. There was a tremendous surge through the train as the bank engine caught up with the slack. I jumped off and scrambled clear giving hand signals to the rear engine crew too far back to see me in the dim light. However they felt the mighty surge and thinking that we had derailed shut off and braked. Fortunately on coming to a stop they released their brakes to allow the compressed buffers to run out. I ran to the front of our engine and saw that the leading wheels were on the edge of the drop and that the earth was crumbling away. I yelled to my mate to back off which he did with some urgency. The culvert pipes had not coped with the storm water and washed away. A repair gang was soon on the scene with bulldozers and stacks of sleepers and in about four hours saw us on our way.

Camel thorn bushes grew sparsely on patches of the desert and small herds of camels and gazelles roamed in the distance. Other animals that we encountered were desert dogs, foxes, wolves and desert rats. Small snakes, asps, lizards of all kinds, huge beetles and colonies of very large ants were another source of interest. Some of our own aircraft, Hurricanes and Beaufighters returning from missions chose to fly so low that their propeller wash stirred up dust trails. They would pass close alongside our trains and when coming from behind the first we would know of their presence was the sudden roar of their motors as they flashed past at cab window height. Their crews no doubt enjoyed the anticipation of our startled reactions.

There were occasional engine derailments through track subsidence and one engine going into a bomb crater. Where these events occurred the rails were cut each side of the accident site and the ends drawn sideways by bulldozer and the gap rejoined with new rails and sleepers and it was back to business as usual.