Friday 23 February 2007

Railway Preservation in Perth

Friday, 23-Feb-2007: I start the day with the usual buffet breakfast followed by 1.5 hours on e-mails, blogs and uploading a few photos. Then Keith picks me up and we drive to the Rail Transport Museum at Bassendean. The President, Jim Oliver (a former footplateman in steam days) has agreed to open the museum specially so that I can study their wonderful collection of locomotives, coaches, wagons and artefacts. We spend a happy couple of hours clambering over locomotives and my photographs are here. My thanks go to Jim for his hospitality.

Lunch is a visit to 'Subway' for a splendid sandwich, after which we drive to the large country park at Whiteman Park, just 10 miles from the centre of Perth. I'm amazed at the scale of the yard supporting the 600m gauge railway operation which gives visitors a ride of almost 8km. They're not steaming today but a number of very friendly volunteers are working on various maintenance and restoration projects. Click for photographs of Whiteman Park.