[Video] Queensland Steam

[The_Doctor]

Hello all,

I thought I would post some videos from my meanderings over the last few years around Queensland.

But first a quick lesson in Queensland steam for those unware.

Queensland Railways operate on 3ft 6inch (1067mm) guage railway.

There are over 4000km of operational railway in Queensland.

Queensland Railways still own, operate and maintain a fleet of 6 operational steam locomotives, these being.

A10 #6 - The oldest operating tender engine in the world.

BB18¼ 1079 - Pacific steam locomotive, This engine has been in constant active service with QR since it was built.

BB18¼ 1089 - Pacific steam locomotive, the last steam locomotive built for a mainline railway in Australia.

C17 974 - 4-8-0 General purpose locomotive, also in constant active service with QR.

AC16 221A - Baldwin built locomotive, shipped to Australia from the USA during the war.

DD17 1051 also known as "The Blue Baby", she is a 2-6-2 tank locomotive.

Confused yet?

QR has an unusual method to indicate the various classes of steam locomotive, however its fairly easy to explain.

The first letter of the loco ID denotes the number of driving wheels this class has, eg an A10 Class locomotive has 2 driving wheels, BB18¼ has 3 etc.
The numbers following this letter indicates the cylinder diameter in inches eg an A10 Class locomotive has 10 inch cylinders and a BB18¼ has 18 ¼ inch cylinders etc etc.

There are exceptions to this rule however, the DD17 and BB18¼'s have two letters to denote that they are the improved version of the B18¼ class, the same holds true for the DD17, however D is used to indicate a tank engine.

The only other exception is the AC16, the 'A' was used to differentiate the AC16's from the QR C16's the A of course meaning American.

If you wernt confused before you probally are now.

Here ends the lesson, lets watch some videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPCIJkEbuRw - BB18¼ 1089 on a Steam Train Sunday run around the Brisbane suburbs.

More to come.