Argus (Melbourne, Vic. : 1848 - 1957), Thursday 5 April 1951, page 1


'X32' TO

THE

RESCUE!

The pride of the Vic-torian Railways' fleet, the Spirit of Progress, limped into Wallan, 30 miles from ~ Melbourne, yesterday and

broke down.

A long delay for passen-gers seemed inevitable until up lumbered "X32," a dirty old engine which had been waiting for a goods train.

The buffers were stripped from "X32" to allow it to be attached to the Spirit, and away it went, bringing the passengers to Mel-bourne in 43 minutes, only three minutes slower than the Spirit.

And it was driven by a novice crew-Driver J. Field and fireman A. Hollingshead, who were mak-ing their first trip on "X32," and were accompanied by an in-structor.

"Standing start!"

The Spirit usually passes through Wallan at 50 m.p.h. "X32's" time was from a stand-ing start.

"X32" uses pulverised brown coal from Yallourn, and it was the first time the Spirit had been hauled by an engine using this

fuel.

Experienced railwaymen said yesterday the goods engine's per-formance opened up the possibil-ity of greater use of pulverised brown coal as fuel.

The Spirit reached Spencer st. station 173 minutes late, after a series of mishaps on the journey from Sydney.

It was 90 minutes late leaving Albury, because the Sydney to Albury express was held up by a goods train at Yass.

The Spirit's engine developed a mechanical fault at Heathcote Junction, forcing it, to crawl as

far as Wallan, where it was de-cided inadvisable to continue to Melbourne.