May 2026 Newsrail features a great mix of latest news and historic feature articles.

The cover of our May edition features a photo (by Bernie Kelly, courtesy Nick Anchen) of C504 powering up the Great Dividing Range with a freight train on the North East Line. This image leads into our feature article by Roydon Burk, whose Victorian Railways career took him to Wodonga in 1980 on both the A and B Rosters for the North East Line. While crewing mostly on standard gauge goods trains between Melbourne and Albury, he also worked on all three standard gauge interstate express passenger trains (Southern Aurora, Spirit of Progress, Intercapital Daylight) as well as the occasional Melbourne –Albury passenger services.

Roydon kept detailed diaries of his work, and was a prolific photographer. This has allowed him to build a superbly detailed presentation on what life was like as driver or fireman on the North East Line at that time. The photography is particularly evocative; Roydon’s time at Wodonga marking the end of the VR blue and gold era, just prior to the advent of through running.

Our second feature concerns the hundredth anniversary of the inaugural run of The Geelong Flier, a flagship express service that offered a non-stop express service from Flinders Street Station to Geelong that was initially timetabled at 70 minutes, but within a few months, reduced to a remarkable 60 minutes for the journey.

Lots of people look forward to our Tourist and heritage rail column each month, and this month we visit Mornington Railway and speak to volunteer Aiden Parlby about the return to service of Hitachi trailer car 1946T. This car, well-known to Melbourne commuters from the 1970s to the 2010s, has found a new life enabling Mornington Railway to readily cater for visitors in wheelchairs, or visitors with prams or strollers, while also allowing those interested in our more recent railway history to experience riding in a Hitachi car.

Our news page looks at some of the early data on Victoria’s recent decision to offer free public transport for April and May. We also look at some of the massive works by the Inland Rail project which are transforming some of the stations along the North East Line, and also find out more about the reintroduction of the classic 1982 InterCity XPT livery to one of the XPT sets.

Our Photos in focus column returns again this month, with a poignant image of steam locomotives X36 and X29 at Newport in 1960 as they awaited scrapping, the big Mikado locomotives towering above the narrow gauge rolling stock relocated from Upper Ferntree Gully following the closure of the last remnant of the Puffing Billy Line to make way for the extension of the suburban network to Belgrave.

We have an extended Taildisc section this month with a number of readers getting in touch following our recent article on the Harris trains, with three former apprentices or fitters writing about their experiences with the building or maintenance of these carriages.

And our usual other columns are there: