|PIC1|To illustrate this, M V Tronson describes the nature of train working of various Locomotive Depots and how this created tensions between the locomotive enginemen.
First, he demonstrated that the trains running out of the Eveleigh Locomotive Depot were main line fast passenger expresses, whereas those belonging to Sydney's Enfield Locomotive Depot were freight trains, many of them all-night-sitters.
The Eveleigh enginemen were able to dress accordingly, in civies, while the Enfield crews wore overalls and regularly worked slow freighters or painful shunting trips. There was some animosity between the enginemen from these two Roundhouses, each with very different cultures.
M V Tronson then describes the three Roundhouses in the Illawarra in the 1960's and 1970's when he was an engineman in that region. Thirroul was the original locomotive depot and by the mid 1960's Thirroul crews were working the workers' trains that ran every fifteen minutes from 6.00am through to 9.00am from Scarborough in the north to Port Kembla in the south. In addition Thirroul crews worked the coal trains to the Wollongong Inner Harbour where the coal loader was located.
Wollongong Depot crews worked the express passenger trains between Sydney and Nowra and the enginemen wore neat civies and some even wore dust-coats. The Port Kembla depot was only opened in the mid 1960s and those crews worked the heavy steel laden freighters up the mountain line to Moss Vale often to barracks, along with light mixed goods trains to Nowra and slow freight trains to Enfield Yard in Sydney.
The tension and rivalry between these depot crews was consistently evident, and it is this subject that M V Tronson took up to illustrate the nature of the constant tension there is within all our daily lives.
As the Footplate Padre, M V Tronson unpacks this illustration to illuminate the spiritual tensions and challenges that come with being a follower of Jesus Christ.