Moleton

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Three men are peering up at a damaged carriage as it is being removed from the railway line over the viaduct near Moleton. One would assume, given their stance, that they weren't concerned about van coming off the line and it being too close to them. The gentleman in the middle wearing the white coat is ? Tolhurst - District Locomotive Engineer, and the man on the right is J C Jones. He appears to be most unconcerned, looking up at the action with his arms folded across his chest. The third unknown person, on the left of the group, is semi-crouched, looking up to scrutinize the progress or lack thereof. The damaged van leans precariously to the left as it is being removed off the track. There is a fair amount of steam coming from the front of the van from a machine, presumably the dozer, that was used for the removal. In the front right foreground you can see a metal bucket on the damaged sleepers and a cable lying alongside of it. Another cable can be seen at the bottom of the picture running from the left to the right, where it is secured around an object on the bank under the viaduct, and it then runs up to the left hand side of the guard's van. You can see the broken rail track on the right. The left rail is hanging to the side of the viaduct as the van is dragged off towards the far bank, breaking and tilting more sleepers, as it would have slowly dragged along. Beyond the steam cloud, on the far right you can see the railway track curving around to the right and past the two buildings in the background. On the left of the train you can see the telegraph poles, indicating that this photo is taken from the opposite side of the viaduct to the previous photo. Near the base of the telegraph pole there appear to be some sleepers laying on the bank. This photo is from the J Jones collection and has 1955? written on the reverse side. AccNr00062 (Glenreagh Memorial Museum)

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The last in our collection of the derailment of the guard's van on the Glenreagh-Dorrigo Railway line at Moleton. After the removal of the van from the viaduct, there wasn't much left intact of the upper wooden structure of HG14974 after it had been pulled over the edge of the viaduct to the ground below the bank. Behind the van you can see the ruts in the grass from the wheelsets of the van and tracks of the dozers. A small branch is caught up on the remaining roof edge on the left side of the van, and the remains of a shrub can be seen hanging near the front wheelset and on top of the debris inside the van. The broken frame also hangs over the right hand side of the van and there may be soil on the back buffer and the back right corner of the van. Two dozers are attached by cable to the van to pull it along the clearing, away from below the viaduct, with the two drivers sitting on their machines looking back at the progress of their work. A former track worker has commented on the previous post that Harry Lynch was the driver of the D6 but was unsure of the driver of the Vickers Rolls-Royce. On the left hand side of the van you can see a steel telegraph pole that ran near the railway track. This is from the J Jones collection and has 1955? written on the back of the photo. AccNr00058