PORTLANDERS lined the Cape Nelson Road railway overpass over the weekend to watch the first passenger train into the city for decades; somewhat behind schedule, but here.

And despite the unforeseen delays leading to an ingloriously late start, Seymour Railway Heritage Centre Inc. (SRHC) John Crofts was delighted to see what he said were “wall to wall people” lining the route to watch the celebrated heritage train come and go.

With an unexpected carriage derailment in Seymour, discovered at 4am on Thursday, masses of unexpectedly “outrageous” paperwork and red tape surrounding the processes of ensuring long-disused lines and crossings were safe, Mr Crofts said there were many positives about this inaugural trip.

Admitting that they hadn’t allowed enough time for the “phenomenally time consuming ARTC train control safety processes”, necessary because each crossing had to have a train keeper to manually activate the crossings on the approach of the train because of the possibility of them not working, and the rails being rusty because of lack of use, Mr Croft said they did achieve one very big goal and that was proof of concept.

“We pride ourselves with running on time but we ran hopelessly late because we just were not aware the paperwork would be so time consuming,” Mr Crofts said. “But proof of concept was what we were looking to achieve, so we can tick that box.”

And the interest generated was phenomenal, both with people coming down to simply observe and also participating in the day trip shuttles to Hamilton, Heywood and the two short shuttles from Hamilton to Chrome Loop.

About 125 people came from Seymour/Melbourne for the weekend in Portland, about 100 day-tripped to Hamilton on Saturday, with the short shuttle attracting about 350 guests first time around and about 170 for the second loop. The shuttle to Heywood on Sunday morning attracted another 150–160 then returned to Portland to depart for the return trip to Seymour.

“We had a very positive response, with most people understanding about the delays,” Mr Crofts said. The Seymour/Melbourne passengers ended up dining in Heywood instead of Portland because of this, but “everyone was hugely excited to see and ride on the train, including many local councillors and their families.

“Portland Mayor Scott Martin came down for a walk-through on the train and had a great chat, and everyone was wildly enthusiastic and supportive, and asking ‘when are you coming back?’”

“From our perspective it was proof of concept achieved, and we’d like to build on that and have the train return periodically, preferably in conjunction with events,” said Mr Crofts.

“Diversity of use feeds into the argument to upgrade the line.” And hopefully avoid any future delays.

A beautiful sight for train enthusiasts as the iconic 1937 Spirit of Progress pulls into Portland. The Spirit of Progress was the first all-steel air-conditioned train in the world.