Working on the Semaphore to Fort Glanville Tourist Railway

[The Inspector]

For a while I was a volunteer at the Railway Museum in Port Adelaide and one of the most entertaining parts of this was operating the 18inch gauge railway along the foreshore at Semaphore.

I had driven the little diesel "Mitzi" on the first temporary track from the current Semaphore station to the palais and then when the main line opened had driven both "Bub" & "Bill" along the line. I was a gaurd aswell as a driver on this line.

2 of my most memorable occassions on the line were a derailment on my last day of training wehre the pony truck of "Bub" decided it didnt like the points at Fort Glanville.

The other was one summer when driving the other loco "Bub" and still during my training I drove through Fort Glanville and sparks from the engine caused a bush fire. Myself and trainer driver seperated the enging from the train and drove "Bub" back into the fort after leaving the train at the station. I started to put out the fire using our onboard fire backpack whilst the trainer driver used the blowdown on the loco to also help put out the fire. The fire brigade arrived and finnished the job.

I had also been able to do light engine running and also running both "Bub" & "Bill" bunker/ tender first with a train on seperate occassions when the turntable at Fort Glanville was not fully usable due to sand build up.

Here are some pics of "Bill" at work on the line.

I was a guard on the train in these 2 pics.