The Road to Siberia

Описание: Starring: Dorothy Lamour and Humphrey Bogart

In 1984 escapees from the Rhonda Colliery Penitentiary near Newcastle hijacked an ancient decrepit steam locomotive and headed on it up the mainline.

The authorities gave hot pursuit in an equally decrepit old diesel locomotive.

The Great Chase continued all the way up the coast of New South Wales to Coffs Harbour.

The authorities were getting desperate. They were being outrun by this ancient old steam locomotive. They needed a Plan B.

So they came up with the idea of railroading the escapees and their old steam locomotive off into a branch line. But which branch line? They had a choice of two. One was occupied by the Gold Coast Motorail Express full of tourists, and the consequences of a head on collision could be disastrous.

The other branch line was an abandoned, deteriorating, ramshackle affair that headed up to Hillbilly Mountain. This branch line had lots of old bridges that could collapse under the weight of a steam locomotive and plunge the escapees to a certain death in the ravines below, and spooky tunnels that could cave in as a steam train sent out reverberating shock waves as it attempted to pass through them. It had land slides that could occur at any moment and a burnt out bridge right before Hillbilly Mountain. That would stop them.

So the authorities radioed the Fat Controller to throw the switch and send the escapees and their steam locomotive up this ancient branch line to their certain doom.

Sure enough, they were switched on to the branch line at Glenreagh. But the authorities were stupid. Instead of giving up the chase and leaving the escapees to their fate on a collapsing rotten bridge or two, they continued after them up the branch line in their ancient old diesel locomotive.

The authorities caught up with them at the sleeping little town of Lowanna, but just as they were about to surround the cab of the steam loco, the escapees pulled the throttle and headed off, leaving the authorities fuming in their wake.

The escapees made it to the burnt out bridge. Collaborators had hastily thrown up a deviation to get their mates across.

Finally they made it to Hillbilly Mountain. There they ensconced themselves in an encampment surrounded by a massive perimeter fence, ready to defend themselves from all and sundry that might attack them.

The authorities gave up realising that the escapees were never going to come down from their mountain fortress, and were never again going to be a threat to civilised society.

So the escapees settled down and bred lots of little steam trains. They remain there to this day, on top of the mountain.

If you are ever passing Hillbilly Mountain and see where it all happened, call in at the Dorrigo Hillbilly Hotel and ask for binoculars. The hotel will lend you pair provided you buy a schooner and hot meat pie.