Australia: Zig Zag Railway, 1st Doubleheader, 1978

[Steve Appleton]

Posted for the photographer, Dennis Mitchell:

This was the first run in preservation of DD17 No 1047 in 1978 on the Zig Zag railway at Lithgow N.S.W. (150 km west of Sydney). The driver is the late Ian Thornton who died in April this year, aged 64. Ian was the brains behind the 3'6" line on Zig Zag, when in the late 60s the N.S.W.G.R. would not give locos to anyone in N.S.W. (4' 8 1/2") except the Rail Transport Museum, then at Enfield, whilst Queensland and South Australia were winding up steam operations on the 3'6" gauge. Ian was later instrumental in the 3801 Limited private company.
These locos, 1047+1046, were a suburban tank loco from 1950/1 for the Brisbane suburban system. Twelve were built as a modern version of the 1920s D17 (with roller bearings, etc). They were withdrawn in 1968/9. These locos only had about 22,000lbs tractive effort, but were quite capable of whipping the 6, 7 and 8 car subbies along at about 50-60 m.p.h. between stops (reminiscent of Port Elizabeth).
John Wilson (Wilso), Karl Rummans, John Abberfield and a cast of thousands .... well 10 others, worked for 3 years in what was then very rudimentry conditions, especially in a Blue Mountains winter, to overhaul firstly 1046 (in service in 1975), then 1047.
John and Karl took a 6-month break after this run and visited all the steamy places they could find. Turkey, Egypt, South Africa, Germany, etc., whilst John Abberfield started on 218A which has just (in 2008) been returned to service.

[Rob Stanier]

Four DD17's survived into preservation. Three ended up at the Zig Zag Railway, being 1046, 1047 and 1049. 1049 is currently in operation.

The fourth one, 1051, is still owned by Queensland Railways (QR) and was restored back to operation in 1993. Rumour has it, that 1051's boiler is in poor condition and is to be condemned in the not to distant future.