~~ TAYUMAN TOWER ~~

This posting is mostly the result of a request on the PRHS PHILIPPINE_MODELLING group for a look at the rather historical panel in the tower at Tayuman.
One of the members has an awesome plan to model the yard at Tutuban/Tayuman and I remembered the track diagrams that appear in these photos from May. I am hoping these will be of use to his project.
Thanks to Karel Brouwers for his assistance in being able to visit this interesting tower, which has recently been reported as a contender for demolition.

Starting at the north end of the yard at Tayuman street you can see the loco shop at the far right, along with a connecting line that ran behind it to sidings where, until recently, squatters ruled supreme.

Today there is no sign of this connecting line, or the tracks

of the sidings it once served.

To the far left is the junction for the north and south lines.

Much visible is the mount of signalling that once existed and was

controlled by the tower.

Further on we can still see the loco shed and then the fans

of tracks that once existed here.

To the bottom is the carriage sheds, while in the centre is the former turntable.

The end of the sidings pretty much show where the current Tutuban station is nowdays, while at the bottom, to the right of the strange pink gadget, is presumably the line to the port, assuming it has since changed its location.


Tutuban station, now converted into Tutuban mall.
All this trackage is long gone, the yard area now carpark at the station now used by the population to relieve themselves of money.

A bonus shot of a caboose taken from up in the tower. This vehicle is currently used on clearing train duties as part of the Linkage Project.

Philippine Modelling

If you are interested in modelling any area of the Philippines, regardless of whether or not it is railway related, then you are welcome to join the PRHS Philippine Modelling group.

Members model in a variety of scales, in a variety of ways

and even a variety of topics.

No matter what you may model, many of the principles are the same and we invite you to join us, discuss what your modelling, give hints, ask

questions and make friends along the way.

~~ CARMONA YESTERDAY AND TODAY ~~

Lindsay Bridge got a photo of this three car CMC/CTC/CMC set standing at Carmona station back in the earlier days of the branch.



Sadly the station had developed into a jungle by the time of my visit in 2009. It had been closed since Typhoon Reming in 2006 and to date there has been no word on when it will reopen, and no actual clarification to what damage the typhoon did.

Next week we plan to do a more instensive photographic survey of Carmona in 2009.

~~ PRHS UPDATE ~~

Good morning everyone,

Been a while since I did one of these, actually I am not even sure I ever have. :-)

The society continues to slowly grow. It was never expected to be a fast thing and as such we are just happy to see growing interest.
We recently recieved our first member from outside Australia - thanks Jeffrey.
Thank you to everyone for their continued, and much appreciated, support.

The newsletter has changed from its small size to A4, while lessons are being learn't, and improvements made, with each issue.
Sometimes I have trouble fitting in everything.
The one thing we are very short of is small historical articles, or scans of historical items etc. We would like to eventually have a histrorical section regularly, but the editors main interest is 80s until today.

The society has ben recieving good coverage in the railfan and other press. This is slowly also proving to show dividends in membership. This sort of promotion shall continue, while I am hoping one of our local Sydney members will take on the important role of approaching local Filipino businesses here for possible support.

Possibly the biggest cause for confusion of late is the recent change of name from the RIHSPI-ANZ.
I shall try to rectify some of this below:

We are, as with the ANZ, basically a support group.
We have a slowly growing (but it is growing) membership and our primary goal is to raise money to donate to railway preservation groups in the Philippines.
The only change is that we can now donate to any railway preservation project in the Philippines that is an official project, this includes Mr Tiongson's RIHSPI.
I have made a number of approaches to the RIHSPI about their interest in continued financial support, but to date only the Vice-President has replied.

So why bother with the name change?

There seemed to be significant confusion over our use of the RIHSPI name.
PNR especially seemed to continually link our group, which was autonomous, and the Philippine based one.
Due to cultural differences, this caused a bit of trouble for the Manila group.

At a board meeting here it was voted to enforce the idea that we were seperate by utilizing a new name. We would still support Philippine preservation as before, but we would technically call them grants so as to appear a different society.

At the current time we are investigating a number of proposals, but to date we have no plans to preserve our own rollingstock. As this would be difficult from Australia, I am unsure where the idea has risen from.
This is not to say we wont in the future.
Indeed the idea of RIHSPIs proposal of preserving Abad Santos signalbox still appeals to many within the PRHS, as does the restoration of all rollingstock the society recently earmarked for preservation.

First and foremost, my love of Philippine railways means that I will do whatever it takes to help the preservation of it along, preservation of items the 'CORRECT' way.
The PRHS will ALWAYS support ANY railway society in the Philippines and look forward to one day being allowed to support the RIHSPI financially, historically and technically again.

Clearing up some of the strange myths going around:

1) We have dumped the RIHSPI to fend for themselves.

Absolutely not. The RIHSPI would always remain our main priority should they request help in restoring items.
They are a very important society with a big job ahead, they should always be supported 100%. The PRHS, regardless of name, will always be here to support them.

2) Changes were made due to disagreement in the Philippines.

Again, absolutely not. The RIHSPI people are great people in person and I have nothing but fond memories of my time there with them.
The work done on the first BUDA car was fantastic, virtually beyond belief for those of us who saw her at Caloocan.
We may have some concerns about their ideas, but this does not prevent us from donating to those projects considered right.

3) We wish to set up a rival museum.

Yeah right, that would be feasable from Australia :-)
No, Manila does not need two museums, it needs one museum and that is the RIHSPI one. Locals should aim to support this one and help where possible.

If anyone else has questions, or have heard some myths surrounding the recent changes, please feel free to email me and I shall answer here, in public, on the website. These can be sent to PRHS.Soci ety @ gmail . com (remove spaces)

~~ PRHS LURKING IN LIGAO ~~

Membership officer Paul Hornby is caught enjoying the sight of 922 at Ligao, the first train at this station in nearly three years.

The CMC would be 366, the sole one south of Lucena and probably in the best condition of all her remaining sisters.

The date was the 4th of August and the photographer 'WheelOnSteel'.

I think the Inquirer journalist summed it all up last night when he closed with

"A DAMN GOOD PERSON"

We all know of her historical importance, its just sad that we only find out the greater person she was inside after her passing!

Farewell President Cory!

~~ 918 UNDERGOING A TRANSFORMATION ~~

PRHS Board Member Paul Hornby is currently holidaying down in Naga.

While down there his lovely new asawa has been quite generous with the railway time allowing him to bring us this interesting shot of 918.

He has been told that it will be repainted into its original blue and red scheme.

Meanwhile the trapped 7A/NR class carriages are also getting a good going over in preparation for resumption of services.

Exciting times ahead, both for the PNR and the PRHS!