From Historic 60 class Photos
6029 is owned by the Australian Railway Historical Society, ACT Division and the restoration is proudly supported by their tourist operations and by the generous donations of members and public supporters.
The society operates rail tours out of Canberra with our heritage fleet of steam and diesel locomotives and rolling stock every few weeks.
To travel in style on any of our tours, or to learn more about our collection and operations, go to trains.org.au

Next Workday

Workdays are the 1st Saturday and 3rd Sunday of the month.


 The next workday will be Saturday the 3trd of March from 8am at Garratt Central(Canberra Railway Museum). New volunteers are always welcome, no skills are required, just a willingness to get dirty.

Fundraising Appeal

simple fundraisers

We need your help to put 6029 back on the rails.

$70,000 is the target we need to reach, before we can fund all the materials and services we need to complete the project. The next big ticket items on our shopping list will likely be piston and valve ringsand a new stoker trough... Don't forget about nuts, bolts and other sundry items that we buy almost every week to keep the project moving.

If you can spare a few bucks, please help us reach the target by clicking on this button.

If money is tight, why not come down and get your hands dirty instead. And remember, the more help we get, the sooner the Garratt will again grace the rails, for the enjoyment of old and young alike.

Finally I can announce that people who donate over $500 in total to Project6029, will qualify for a cab ride once 6029 is back in service. What an incentive! Anyone can qualify for this bonus, and those that have already donated are in the running. Just donate a total of $500 or more and you are in the queue...

Sep 7, 2011

Saturday 3 September 2011

The plan for the day was very simple... it was to compete all outstanding tasks to ensure that 6029 could be safely shunted. So we started off in the smoke box as the forty 7/8 BSW bolts had to be fitted to secure the boiler in place. The problem is that all of theses holes had been welded up when the boiler was used in stationary service. As fast as we were trying to drill out the holes the drill bits would become blunt and useless. Solution, get a bigger drill, use plenty of cutting fluid and keep sharpening the drills. By lunch time we had roughed out about 12 holes and we had had enough, so our next workday will involve a very large air drill and maybe some colorful language.

Mark and Alan started the fit up of the air compressor's Nathan mechanical lubricator and associate pipe work. Tony continued to dot around the locomotive with black paint as it seems we had missed few spots, it is over 100 feet long!

Back at the cab end Graeme Kidgell completed the installation of the fireman’s side boiler feed lines. Andy Heys prepped the last of the cab mounting bolt holes and also had time to sneak in a few cups of tea. You just cant get good help theses days!

By days end we received news that the Eveleigh team had almost finished the cab and that one more day should do it.



All being well the cab will be back in Canberra before then end of the month and will go straight onto the locomotive. Updates will be posted as the details firm up.

Alan Gardner
Posted by

How can you help 6029 get back on the rails?

This project is self funded, the workers are all volunteers, and we need your help.

Maybe you can come to Canberra on a work day and get your hands dirty, or you have a nice workshop at home and need a reason to spend more time in it.
Maybe you can't make it to Canberra, but could do a little work in Sydney, if you think you have something to offer, contact us...even if you don't think you have anything to offer, but want to be involved in preserving a litlte piece of history, contact us and we will do our best to find something interesting and productive to suit you.

Even the simplest things can help...can you spare $5 or $10 a week? it's small change on its own, but if 20 people could donate $10 a week, that would be $800 a month that we don't have now, and every dollar will help us put this monster back on the rails for everyone to enjoy.



All donations over $2 are tax deductable.