Train to Dubbo

 Earlier this year, Robin expressed interest in a trip with me to Dubbo by train. Of course, I said yes and Marianne and I drove down to Sydney. While Marianne was left in Sydney to go shopping, Robin and I met at Central Station early in the morning.

The train line is the 6 hr 59 min route.

The Grand Concourse at the station, with Christmas trees.

The old clock.

The Departures Board which replaced the old version which now is on display at the Powerhouse Museum. You can see it here. Unsurprisingly, I prefer the older version.

Our train.

Not our train but this is another of these XPT train sets that were built in Australia but were based on the UK's Intercity 125 trains.

Platform 1 where the trains to Melbourne, Brisbane and Perth depart.

We boarded the train and it left ontime.

I needed coffee and this is what the buffet car provided. A cup of hot water and a coffee bag that worked the same as a tea bag. It was better than I expected but pretty awful compared to espresso.

The windows give a green tint to my photos. The purple trees are Jacarandas that are in full bloom in Sydney. In the warmer climate of Queensland, they bllom on October and are mostly finished.

After an hour or so, we reached the Blue Mountains which were fog-bound.

The viaduct is part of the old Zig-zag Railway which used to be the train line over the range before it was replaced in 1910.

Lithgow was the centre of a coal mining district and this is what remains of a coal fired electricity plant. With the change to a Labor government in Canberra, coal is increasingly being replaced by solar and wind power to generate electricity. Wind and solar are cheaper.

The Sydney area has had record rainfall this past year so normally brown grass is bright green.

It's a beautiful journey. Our side of the train faced north so taking photos through a train window is made difficult by the strong sun. The following day when we returned to Sydney in the afternoon, we thought the same scenery looked much better.

Once we passed Orange, the hills were replaced by flat plains. A hundred miles south, there was considerable flooding. We had planned to go to Broken Hill in the far west of NSW, but floods had submerged the train line.

We arrived a few minutes late in Dubbo about 2 pm.

Our train. At 2:15, it heads back to Sydney.

We stayed overnight at this motel which we both thought was pretty good. Roses do well in Dubbo.

We had been given a room for disabled people and it was quite large.

Another jacaranda.

Supposedly a diner but we went elsewhere for dinner.

The next day we decided to walk around Dubbo before the train left in the afternoon.

Letterbox. There is no standard design in Australia.

A lovely old hotel.

Robin's breakfast.

We were intrigued by the colours of these cement mixers.