THE lot at CountryLink, State Rail or Rail Infrastructure, or one of them, or who knows, all of them, have certainly done a good job vandalising rail facilities in the bush.
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Rail lines have been closed and ripped up and stations, workshops and other rail buildings knocked down or leased to private interests to make sure trains are gone forever.
A loco building in Orange rail yards now houses heaps of compost, woodchips, soils, treated timber and rocks when once trains used to live there.
That’s probably all very well for gardeners except it might have cost us the opportunity to have another daily commuter service to Sydney and back.
Persistence by Bathurst people won them their own two-car Endeavour, dubbed the Bathurst Bullet, which leaves at 5.48am and arrives at Central Station at 9.25am. It comes back at 5.55pm, arriving at Bathurst at 9.38pm.
But here’s the crunch.
After arriving at Bathurst at night the Endeavour is taken back to Lithgow for an overnight sleep of less than four hours, apparently for security reasons, and then driven back to Bathurst again early the next morning before loading passengers and going to Sydney at 5.48am.
Had the loco shed still been vacant in Orange, the Endeavour could have come on to Orange, rather than go back to Lithgow, and spend the night here, giving us an early morning Sydney service.
But with new mob NSW TrainsLink now running country rail, we still have a fight on our hands just to keep our XPT, which could get the chop, let alone convincing someone to give us another train.
The XPT alternative dished up could include more buses or service sharing with Great Southern Railway, a private operator of interstate passenger trains, including the Indian Pacific which goes through Orange on its Perth run.
We deserve better than that.
Biddy a stout woman
The old Standard Hotel in Anson Street re-opened yesterday as an Irish pub called Biddy Walsh’s.
Biddy was bushranger Ben Hall’s wife and had an interesting life to say the least.
Hall, who was pretty active around these parts, married her in February 1856 in the Church of St Michael at Bathurst. He was 19 and Biddy was 16.
They had a son in August 1859 who they named Henry.
In early 1862 Biddy left Hall and took young Henry to live with a flash ex-trooper named James Taylor.
This upset Hall no end and further promoted his bushranging career, joining Frank Gardiner’s gang and taking part in the infamous stage coach gold robbery at Escort Rock just out of Eugowra.
Later with his own gang he bailed up Robinson's Hotel in Canowindra and held all the people in the town captive for three days.
After a string of hold-ups and raids around Carcoar and Bathurst he was eventually shot by police on May 5, 1865, near Forbes, and is buried in Forbes cemetery.
Biddy had three children with Taylor and finally married him in 1876 but he died a year later.
She then lived at Fords Bridge, near Bourke, for many years where she was known by locals as “Granny Taylor” and was well respected in the district.
She died in 1923 aged 82.
So now if you want to give her a thought, you can sink a few Guinness in Biddy’s new Orange Irish pub.
Hair-brained
Did you hear about the blonde who kept an empty milk jug in the fridge?
It was just in case any of her friends wanted black coffee.
Hands are tied
You certainly can’t accuse Orange post office staff of being clock watchers.
The PO clock’s hands have been stuck on five past 11 for several months now and people who work there either haven’t noticed or have put repairs in the too-hard basket.
So the old adage time stands still certainly applies in this case, although it must be said the clock shows the correct time at least twice a day, at five past 11am and five past 11pm.
Orange people seem to have problems with clocks because one in Coles supermarket was stopped the other day while earlier in the year it took Woollies supermarket several weeks to change its clock off daylight saving time.
Colours to dye for
If you’re wandering around Orange shops looking for some winter wear you’ll be confused by a whole range of colours dreamt up by marketers.
Now you can’t buy a red jumper. It’s cerise.
And if it’s green you want, look for viridian. Blue? It’s sky.
And what about these? Rust, asphalt, oat, apple, oyster, pearl, ochre, plum, stone, charcoal, marle, mustard, indigo, moss, agate and merlot.
Here’s some more: bisque, blonde, cream, buff, chrome, gold, lemon, ivory, saffron, sand, tawny and peacock.
Soon we’ll need a colour chart to buy a new top or shirt.
But the top colours at this time of the year are still cardinal and myrtle.
Up the Rabbitohs.