Y Not?????
Why indeed, why not a Y? Well it had to happen one day.
Anyone studying a map of the New South Wales south coast would realise that the far reaches of SCR are very close to the Victorian border.
Although it hasn't made the news as far as I know what has actually happened is that the Victorians are going to extend their line from the Gippsland area to connect up with the South Coast line.
So what has happened is that it was requested that a loco be brought up for driver training along the current route.
Luckily there was a photographer who had been tipped off about a Y class loco coming up for the trial and managed to get a few shots in the local hack spots.
Although this was only a Y class on driver training, as the line is currently used by NSW Main Line locos there will be no trouble in the future if heavier VR locos are required to run.
This loco had to be trucked up from Bairnsdale and was also dropped onto standard gauge bogies.
The Y class went into the goods yard at Bodalla to allow the crew to get some ground training. It turned out to be a waste of time as they discovered that the ground here was similar to the ground in Victoria.
In the above photo you can see that the car driver is Holden back and waiting for the train to pass through the crossing. Otherwise it would have been a case of a GM meeting another GM.
The loco has just picked up the electric staff for the next section and to make the crew feel at home a couple of ELX wagons were attached.
As can be seen the loco is in pristine condition (despite some piping coming adrift on the side of the loco) I'm sure that there will be plenty of time to get weathered.
With the waterfall in the background flowing the Y treads across one of the three bridges located in the 'gully' corner.
Coming out of the tunnel that links Narooma with Bodalla the Y drifts on the downgrade at this location.
One thing is for sure that you can't rule out further insurgences of the Blue and Yellow onto the south coast. On the other hand the Mexicans will have to get used to seeing 44 class at Bairnsdale in the future.
