Plenty of Puff left

By CASEY NEILL
THIS month marks 50 years since Puffing Billy got back on track following a landslide that closed the Dandenongs rail line for almost 10 years.
Puffing Billy Preservation Society (PBPS) will celebrate the milestone with festivities and a very special train trip.
“The re-opening of the line to Menzies Creek on July 28, 1962 was a truly significant day which saw the culmination of many years of hard work and commitment from volunteers,” society president Jeff Goodwin said.
So at 1.30pm on 28 July – exactly 50 years since the railway re-opened to the public between Belgrave and Menzies Creek – the society will run the same locomotive that marked the steam train’s return to the tracks.
It will haul the same carriages from Belgrave Station to Menzies Creek Station with guests including the original driver, Ian Barkla, and representatives from the 1962 PBPS executive committee.
Rover Scouts have been invited to take part in the commemorations because in 1962 about 1000 of them placed new sleepers and ballasted the line for a day.
Vision Australia representatives will be on board because a blind youth named Peter, the Royal Victorian Institute for the Blind School Railway Club president, travelled in the locomotive cab with the crew on the train’s first trip back.
The commemorative train’s crew are the railway’s youngest qualified driver, fireman and guard. Menzies Creek Primary School students and Puffing Billy’s Youth Group have also been invited aboard.
“We recognise that the future of Puffing Billy Railway is reliant of the next generation and were keen to have them involved in this historic occasion,” Mr Goodwin said.
John Thompson became involved with efforts to save Puffing Billy in 1960 is on the Puffing Billy Preservation Society executive committee today.
He still vividly remembers the excitement surrounding Puffing Billy’s return to the rails. That occasion was marked with a brass band at the train’s newly-built Belgrave station and plenty of bunting.
“One of the most euphoric occasions was when Puffing Billy came back from storage,” he said.
They sent it off on its first run with freshly-painted carriages – red with silver rooftops that soot soon blackened, Mr Thompson laughed.
“In those days there wasn’t much to do in Melbourne on a weekend,” he said.
“Puffing Billy brought the opportunity to the people of Melbourne to have a day out.”
Mr Thompson looks at Puffing Billy today with “a sense of disbelief”.
“Some things that have happened recently are beyond our wildest dreams,” he said.
Puffing Billy Railway was among four narrow-gauge railways constructed in Victoria in the early 1900s to open up remote areas. In 1953 a landslide blocked the track and Victorian Railways closed the line.
Tremendous public interest saw Puffing Billy Preservation Society form in 1955 and work to bypass the landslide. The rail to Emerald re-opened in 1965, followed by the stretch to Emerald Lake Park in 1975 and Gembrook in 1998.
“We never thought we would achieve that,” Mr Thompson said.
“The preservation society has achieved so much, by saving Puffing Billy from oblivion.”
Call 9757 0700 for information about joining Puffing Billy Preservation Society.