Historic Photo of the Day: 2026-01-09

Today's historic photo of the day: Alco diesel loco 44203 hauling train S65, the Sydney to Melbourne Intercapital Daylight arrives at Harden, NSW, October 26 1985. Harden is a medium sized country town in the South-West Slopes region of New South Wales served by a railway station 385km from Sydney on the NSW main South line. In 1985, when this photo was taken, the station, which still had extensive yards, was served by the Intercapital Daylight and Spirit of Progress between Sydney and Melbourne, and the Riverina XPT between Sydney and Albury. Connecting passenger trains on the cross-country line to Young and Cowra had ceased less than two years beforehand. The Daylight was an express passenger train between Melbourne and Sydney that, as its name suggests, ran in daylight. It left each city each Monday to Saturday morning, ran through the day before arriving at its destination in the evening. Introduced in 1962 when the standard gauge line between Albury and Melbourne first opened, it was run as a loco-hauled air-conditioned NSW 'RUB' set with first and economy class seats and a buffet car. The train was initially intended to carry passengers between Sydney and Melbourne, but as air travel captured more of that market in the 1980s, the Daylight increasingly became a service from Melbourne and Sydney to intermediate cities along the way. The Daylight was withdrawn in 1991, however after an absence of three years, daytime passenger rail services between Australia's two largest cities were restored by re-timing and extending the Riverina XPT, which had previously run just between Sydney and Albury, so that it runs all the way from Sydney to Melbourne in daylight. Today, Harden station still serves the town. In addition to the numerous freight trains that run through here, twice daily NSW TrainLink XPT trains between Sydney and Melbourne and twice weekly XPLorer trains between Sydney and Griffith call here for passengers.