The Picnic Train - Goulburn to Junee - 27th March 2025

The Picnic Train operates excursions in the state of New South Wales in Australia. Trips are generally steam-hauled and are a combination of short shuttle trips, half day excursions and full day tours. Some tours originate from Sydney while others operate out of regional centres.
In late March and early April 2025 The Picnic Train travelled on a 12 day tour from Goulburn to Albury and return with the main purpose being to operate shuttle trips out of Albury on the weekend of the 29th and 30th March, two half day excursions from Wagga Wagga to Cootamundra and return on Saturday, 5th April, and shuttle trips between Wagga Wagga and Uranquinty on Sunday, 6th April.

The train departed from Goulburn on Thursday 27th March with R 766 hauling a consist of 18 vehicles plus two diesel locomotives. Included in the consist was a water gin (tank wagon) and a flat wagon carrying fuel oil (the locomotive is oil fired) plus sleepings cars for the crew, a dining car, and passenger carriages to be used on the excursion trains.
It was possible to ride the outbound trip from Goulburn to Junee on 27th March and the return journey from Junee to Goulburn on 7th April.

This series of five videos cover the two-day journey from Goulburn to Junee and on towards Albury on 27th and 28th March, the half day excursions between Wagga Wagga and Cootamundra on 5th April, the shuttle trips out of Wagga Wagga on 6th April and, finally, the journey back to Goulburn on 7th April.

This first video features the journey from Goulburn to Junee with most of the footage taken while riding the train.

A group of seven railfans assembled at Goulburn the evening before for a convivial meal before joining the train for the 7.15am departure from Goulburn.

It should be noted that the footage this day is somewhat compromised by the movement of the train (making it rather jerky) and the wind noise, however if you can put up with this, it's quite entertaining. Due to circumstances explained in the video, footage between Cootamundra and Junee was captured from a road vehicle while motorcading the train.

This was a significant event as it was R 766's first journey south of Goulburn. The locomotive was constructed by the North British Locomotive Works in Glasgow in 1951 for the Victorian Railways which operated a predominantly broad gauge network (5' 3" gauge) in the state of Victoria. The seventy members of the class were designed to be gauge convertible to standard gauge (4'8 1/2", however, none were converted during their period in regular service which concluded in 1967.

It was only in the early 2000s that work commenced to convert, the privately owned and restored, R 766 to standard gauge and it commenced operation in New South Wales as a standard gauge locomotive in 2022.

Prior to this tour it had only hauled standard gauge trains in the Hunter Valley, on the South Coast Line, on the Short South to Goulburn (including between Picton and Thirlmere) and on the railway from Goulburn to Canberra.

JUST A REMINDER: I travelled to and from Goulburn by train and didn't take my tripod with me, so all the footage in this video is handheld, when combined with the movement of the train and the wind noise, it's not high quality!