A striking photograph of diesel-electric locomotive A62, now beautifully restored to its original 1984 V/Line livery, introduces the subject of this month’s Tourist and Heritage Rail column. Newsrail spoke to Tom Anderson at heritage group Seven-O-Seven Operations, who gave us the run-down on this exciting project.

Two very interesting feature articles are included this month. One is the second article written for Newsrail by the rail industry veteran (and lifelong railfan) David Parsons, who photographed and jotted down sightings of trains on the East Kew Line in its final days of operation in 1943.

Greg Michael has also written a feature on the the rail crossing at Inkerman Street, the site of one of Melbourne’s earliest level crossing removal projects, all the way back in 1893!

We also have another installment of our semi-regular Photo in focus series, this time featuring a scene of Swing Door (a.k.a. dog box) trains sitting in the Jolimont yards in 1925, with the city skyline forming the backdrop.

Our News section covers the 500,000 tonne increase in grain carried by rail during the current season, despite the poor condition of some key routes, as well as the construction commencement of the next batch of 23 VLocity sets (which will bring the total to 141) and progress on the testing of the Metro Tunnel ahead of its scheduled 2025 opening.

Our other regular sections are there:

• General works
• Operations and sightings
• Tramways
• PTV service quality
• Where is it?
• Taildisc