We have a few historical railway societies in Australia which cling on to the romance of train travel past. Well, it's "romance" as long as you don't need to travel on it for your daily commute, anyway.

One of them is the Lachlan Valley Railway Society which has its headquarters in Cowra, a small town in the central west of NSW near... er, close to... well, not much else, really, but it IS a pretty little town.

The society is dedicated to preserving NSW railway history, but less with static exhibits than moving ones. This includes the train that we see here, the locomotive for which is a 2-8-2 (Mikado) style steam engine. (Meaning that it has an axle with two leading wheels, 4 axles with 8 powered wheels, then a further two trailing wheels.) More specifically it's a D59 class (hence the number 5917) which was built by the Baldwin Locomotive Works of (at the time) Pennsylvania. (Baldwyn went out of business in 1972, having failed to successfully make the jump from steam to diesels.) It entered service in March 1953, and was withdrawn in 1972. Over the years since then it has run a number of tours, in between periods of being out of service for overhauls which were badly needed for a train of that age. It has been back in service since 2019, mostly running on the service we see here; the Kiama Picnic Train which runs on the weekends (and occasionally mid week in the holiday season) between Sydney and the south coast town of Kiama. It's not the cheapest ride you'll ever have - two first class seats will set you back $240 return, a private compartment for 4 people costs $440 - but it would certainly be a memorable one and the price is probably fair given the costs in keeping these trains running.

On which point, there is a slight cheat here. You can't see it in this shot but at the back end of the train is another locomotive run by the Society, a 47 class diesel-electric unit which dates back to 1973. Much as we have visions of steam engines powering unimpeded along sweeping lines stretching off into the distance, they DID (and do) often have trouble with steep inclines. And there are a LOT of those on the Illawarra line.

This shot was taken from platform 2 at Thirroul Railway Station, which is not one of the train's stops. It rattled through there quite rapidly, but there was enough time for people on the platform to wave and for the driver to wave back. I was originally thinking of getting ahead of them to get them out of the shot, but then decided that it would be better "personalised" a little.

Walking back to the car park I saw a dad and his kids bundling out of a van and looking to the north. "Are you looking for the steam train?", I asked.

"Yeah, do you know when it'll be coming through?", he replied.

"I have some bad news for you..."

Still, there will be a few more runs before the new year.

Incidentally, as you can probably tell from the harshness of the light, summer is making a comeback. The temperature wasn't over the top, but the life-sapping humidity which helps give the light its harsh edge was back with a vengeance.