Warrnambool, ocean in background

Christmas here marks the start of the summer holiday so not too much happens in January. With the forecast for Friday Jan 4^th correctly predicting 42C in Melbourne, I hit on the idea of a mini-break to Warrnambool, a small city on the Southern Ocean, 265km/165mi SW of Melbourne, not somewhere I’d previously visited.

Why Warrnambool? The decider was that it’s at the end of one of our few surviving regional rail lines so I could sit back and let V/Line drive.This section of the coastline is known as the ‘shipwreck coast’ for good reason and as you look south the next landfall is Antartica – just the place to go if you’re escaping heat!

V/Line carriage reversible seats

The comfortable trip took 3½ hours from Melbourne. I opted for first class, A$94 (about £50), v. $77.20 for economy, a no-brainer really. First class carriages have 52 seats v. 88 in economy – why V/Line set their pricing so as to make much less per carriage off their premium passengers I don’t know?

The first class seats are on swivel mounts and are rotated to face the direction of travel at each end.

Warrnambool station

The railway line from Melbourne reached Geelong in 1856 and was progressively extended, reaching Warrnambool in 1890. A fine station building survives.

With two nights and one full day there, I couldn’t see everything but I had a good time. I certainly escaped the heat: the forecast 30C for Friday was reached about 10.30 and then the temperature dropped sharply, making me wish I’d taken my cardigan.

Thursday evening was spent walking down to the beach and back through to city centre in search of a good dinner. Friday morning started off with a walk in the sun by Lake Pertobe – between 1974 and 1980 what was a swampy area was turned into a recreational lake surrounded by parkland.

Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village

Then off to one of Warrnambool’s main attractions, Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village. The museum is laid out like an 1870s period village and incorporates the original lighthouses and Warrnambool Garrison. A period-costumed guide gave us a really interesting and informative tour. Friday evening was spent at the huge summer market next to the lake, then on Saturday it was time to come home.

There’s much more to Warrnambool – in the winter, whale watching is a big tourist draw, and the city has also been brought to prominence by the film ‘Oddball’, in which trained Maremma dogs protect the fairy penguins from marauding foxes. It’s well worth watching.

Will I go back? Definitely as there’s lots more to see. I’ll either hire a car once down there or drive so I can go further afield. But I’ve got a few other Victorian train lines to check out first.

History

Overland crest

From the beginning both South Australia and Victoria used broad (Irish) gauge (1600mm) for their main lines, so providing an inter-capital connecting service was just a question of joining the lines. The Melbourne-Adelaide train has operated since 1887 when South Australia’s Adelaide-Wolseley line was extended to meet Victoria’s broad gauge line at Serviceton. The service was given its current name, The Overland, in 1926. Diesel locos took over in 1953.

In 1995 the line was converted to standard gauge, finally enabling through running between all the mainland state capitals.

Today

The Overland ready to leave Adelaide

The Overland now operates a twice weekly daytime in each direction, the journey taking about eleven and a half hours.

The train departs at 0745 with passengers asked to check in from 0645. Checking in is more like airline checking in, though thankfully without security scanning. Checked baggage travels in a baggage van and is collected at the journey’s end.

Enjoying the Overland experience

Most  passengers travel in standard class carriages, 15 rows of seats with 2+2 seats per row. I paid the $100 extra for a Red Premium seat – these seats are in a separate carriage, arranged as 12 rows of 2+1 seating, each seat having a retractable tray table. The additional fare also includes meal service at your seat – breakfast, morning coffee, lunch and afternoon tea. For lunch I opted for camel curry and it was very acceptable.

Look below the seat armrest and you’ll see a small foot pedal. This lets the seat be turned round to face the direction of travel, or you can set two rows to face each other as you can see behind me.

The first part of the journey leaving Adelaide includes some demanding climbs, the rationale for Shea’s ‘big engines’ but after this it’s through open country, with grain stores giving way to sheep country. The last section of the journey is arguably the most interesting to rail enthusiasts, the standard gauge line following the broad gauge line from North Geelong to Newport, then diverting round the Sunshine freight line and back through the Footscray Bunbury Street tunnel to arrive at South Cross platform 2.

All in all a very pleasant trip and one I’d do again.

Work in progress

This visit to Adelaide, my third, held a special interest. Since 2014 I’ve been a volunteer at our Newport Railway Museum in Melbourne which had given me a special interest in visiting the National Railway Museum in Port Adelaide.

Saturday

Off the Golden Princess at 0700, train to the city to dump my stuff, then train back to Port Adelaide to visit the Railway Museum, then the Maritime Museum – the Aviation Museum will have to wait for my next visit.

NRL Class 500 loco

As I’d anticipated, the NRL is a much larger operation than Newport. It’s open seven days a week, has a small paid staff and most of the exhibits are contained in three large buildings. Our Newport locos and carriages have stood outside for fifty five years (a few getting roofed over last year) and show it. The undercover NRL exhibits are in showroom condition.

Just before my visit I read Kings of the Iron Horse, the biographies of Alf Smith (1868-1951), Chief Mechanical Engineer of Victorian Railways, and his protege Fred Shea (1891-1970). By the early 1920s SAR was on the point of collapse and a Canadian, W.A.Webb, was brought in to turn them round and Fred Shea was recommended to him by VR for the post of CME. Shea’s principal achievement was the acquisition of a fleet of ‘big engines’, some of the most powerful ever seen in Australia.

Sunday

Art Gallery of South Australia

I started the day at Flinders Street Baptist Church, one of Adelaide’s oldest, then spent most of the afternoon exploring city centre attractions, principally the Adelaide Museum and the Art Gallery of South Australia.

As it was a fine afternoon, I took the tram (Adelaide currently has just one tram route) to Glenelg, a seaside suburb about 30 minutes away.

Finally, back to the city for an early night as I needed to be at the Overland terminal by 0645.