Hat tip to @rpy on Twitter for finding a V/Line locomotive in an old Victoria Bitter commercial. You can find the full version on YouTube.
you can get it fixing the trains
matter of fact i’ve got it now pic.twitter.com/T9U7ZPV0rU
— Rupert H (@rpy) February 14, 2015
The featured locomotive is V/Line’s P18 – it entered service in February 1985 and is still in service today, hauling passengers between Southern Cross and Bacchus Marsh.
I then did a little more digging, and came across this 1973 VB commercial that also features the “you can get it fixing the trains” line – but this time with a steam locomotives.
This time R761 was the star, but by the time that the commercial was screened, steam on the Victoria Railways was dead – the first diesels had entered service in the 1950s and had slowly taken over the rails, with the last regular steam locomotive hauled train running in April 1972. Luckily for railfans, R761 still exists today, having been restored by volunteers and used on special trains across Victoria.
And another one
Found another Australia beer advertisement feature trains – this time for Carlton Draught.
Starting steam locomotive K190, it was filmed at Yarto on the Murtoa to Patchewolock branch in western Victoria about 1985.
Beer related footnote
Heritage specials are now the only place you can legally buy a beer on a Victorian train – V/Line stopped selling alcohol on their trains in December 2008.
(I’m not counting the Melbourne-Sydney XPT, as they only have light beer)
Not quite beer, but HSV-7’s later version of the ‘Hello Melbourne’ ident from the 1980’s features loco X43 in V/Line Livery. The idents ran between early 1985 and 1987 when Fairfax infamously bought the station and cut Melbourne programming in favour of Sydney-based network programming. Seven news rated near-zero for a while afterwards after the sacking of Mal Walden!
You can see it in this Ivan Hutchinson Move intro I uploaded to YouTube at 0:43 – this is from shortly before the Fairfax takeover.
Some very cheesy acting there – ‘running’ down the platform to catch a train that isn’t moving!
The hovercraft at the 28 second mark appears to be the short lived ‘Courier’ – it operated on Port Phillip for a few months in the summer of 1986-87.
You can also buy alcohol on the Overland to Adelaide.
I missed that one – Great Southern Rail doesn’t seem to have any menus on their website.