Notch it up.....down under

[wes_sutton]

Due to a wide range of circumstances, which would take a small thesis to explain, a number of first generation EMD and Alco units still roam the mainline rails in Australia. In the state of Victoria open access operator El Zorro hires in a variety of power from various historical societies to run grain trains on the regional broad gauge (5"3") network. A couple of weeks ago, one such loaded train ran into a few problems climbing Warrenheip Bank.......

About five years ago, three first gen Alcos got into similar difficulties in New South Wales 

[Guilford Guy]

Isn't ALCo-FM fairly popular down there? I know FM is still building 251s, but they're obviously not in use in the US.

[up1950s]

Why couldn't they break the train in 2 , pull the first half to a passing siding , then go back to pick up the rear half ?

[wes_sutton]

Isn't ALCo-FM fairly popular down there?

Not that I'm aware of. These are all original Alcos built under licence in Oz back the 1960s and 70s.

As for the question re splitting the train in half, I think it gets a bit tricky in that the owners of the track and the operators of the train in both vids are separate organisations - which raises all sorts of issues. In the case of the Alcos, they were sharing the track with interurbans so probably it had a another train up its clacker preventing it from reversing.