The Southern Aurora was Australia's premier express passenger train in the 1960's. It was an overnight 'sleeper', and trains ran both ways each night of the week between Sydney and Melbourne. It was established in 1961 when the standard gauge track was completed between Albury and Melbourne.
Like any large ongoing enterprise, sometimes things would crop up that simply should not have happened – even on this prestige passenger express. One chapter of M V Tronson's book was devoted to engineman's anecdotes. These are samples of some of those stories.
The first refers to a crew working The Southern Aurora one night, when running towards Albury past Shepherds Siding through the dip, then climbing out of the hollow at maximum speed. Suddenly, there appeared two white lights coming directly at them on the single line. All NSW diesels had two white lights at the front of the locomotives. The driver clambered out of his seat exclaiming to his fireman, "Been nice knowin'ya mate, it's been a good trip". They were greatly relieved to find that it was the two lights of a farmer's tractor, ploughing the paddocks beside the track. Frightening!
The second story relates that, when on one occasion The Southern Aurora was 90 minutes late leaving Albury for Sydney, the crew gunned the diesels to try and make up as much time as possible. The guard was a well known character nick named 'Moan'n Ned' and on arrival in Goulburn he told the driver the trip was so rough he was going 'pull the tail' (apply the emergency brakes from the van). 'Why didn't you?' the driver asked. The reply came, "Gotta get up off the floor first!"
A third story tells of how, when running out of Cootamundra one night towards Sydney, the trailing 44 Class diesel failed. The driver noticed the blue lube alert light and they heard what sounded like a cannon shot as they passed the flour mill. The Southern Aurora came to a stand, and the fireman went back to discover one of the pistons had shot right out of its setting and careered through the side panel.
Fourthly, a Victorian diesel was detaching at Albury one night when the low water alarm went off and the engine shut down. Although it would have been easy to get the hose to fill the reservoir, the NSW crew was not permitted to touch it because a Victorian Railways fitter had to be called from Wodonga. This Victorian diesel blocked the line and delayed the whole night's progress for 90 minutes.
And a fifth tale refers to one night when a relatively 'green' fireman saw what he thought were braking sparks off the wheels of the carriages. The driver looked through his rear mirror and didn't notice any sparks but the fireman insisted, so when the train went around a right curve, the driver went to see for himself from the fireman's side. The fireman was mistaking the carriage step lights for sparks.
Footplate Padre Mark Tronson explains that there is one thing certain in our daily lives with family, work, leisure, sport.... things will go wrong, mistakes will be made, relationships will be tested, bad things happen.
The good book, he says, recognises this from Genesis to The Revelation but it goes further, its unequivocal message is that it doesn't need to end this way.
This story of the Cross and the Resurrection is that Jesus' message brings hope, a fresh start, and a whole new beginning. "This is such a positive message," M V Tronson concludes!