Open Days: September open day was pretty busy with a good crowd of paying customers needing the use of a second carriage for a couple of trips.
Good to see some extra help, particularly in the shop.
October open day was also good and the ladies were pleased that exactly the same amount in fares was taken as last year. We could have done with a few more pairs of mens hands though as we started a couple of fires and without the help of a couple of passengers, would have had trouble putting them out.
Charter Trips: We have had a busy time since last newsletter. 6 days of trips have been run for kindergartens and various other groups. It is good to see our name getting around and these groups being interested. One bus company that has never been in the 'outbacks' of Huntly was very impressed with the attractions out our way and beyond and are looking at some promotion of the area for day trips from Auckland. We have had the shop open for all except kindergartens and have sold a reasonable amount of souvenirs etc. I hear Colin Ewing and Bruce Perry even got charged a fare for one charter trip! Thems the breaks.
Loco Shelter: Everytime I go to the Junction, the interior gets darker. Richard has been covering in the sides and only the rear wall of the newer section remains to be done. The next step is for doors. We have purchased a garage type roller door for the side for person access and this will be put up shortly. Doors for the ends will be made in halves rather than a very wide door.
F185: The boiler is presently sitting as close to its proper place as possible and we will shortly be getting the sides of the smokebox extended. Both coal boxes are in place, so it looks as if something is happening on its own.
Calendars: We still have the Railway Enthusiasts Soc. wall calendars available at $8. Since last newsletter, we have received some N.Z. Railway and Loco Socs desk type calendars. These are for sale at $11.00.
Pukemiro Pickings: The PD gang have been extremely good value in the last few months. Approx. 60 sleepers have been put in the main line - some at each end of Puke yard. They have been supervised/assisted by Bob or myself. They have continued with the gorse cutting and it is possible to get a jigger from Glen Afton to the sandfill. There is still a bit more gorse on the cutting sides to cut and then heaps of cleaning up as they work back to the sandfill.
Bob has done a couple of days work packing the track in the yard after the PD gangs re-sleepering.
Bob, Richard and Pete Jones have all had some input into a new stove chimney in the Shanty - stainless steel no less. Perhaps this is to try and keep out the frequent frosts this winter.
No.3 Car: Bob has continued upgrading the woodwork on this and the round beading for around the windows. The final work required is a couple of new window sills and-then painting.
Mike Andrews has continued work on the Ds loco undergear. This is now mostly shiny in new paint instead of grease, oil and coal dust all long since set and stuck solid.
Painting continues in the shop with the doors now getting 'attached' and the smell of burning paint drifts around the yard.
Maxine found an article on parcels and freight stamps used by NZR between
1925 and 1959. Some items contained in the article are:
Parcels containing various specific commodities such as bath chairs, birds in cages, dress stands, rocking horses, stags heads, mounted or unmounted, and typewriters loose were charged at rate and a quarter. Parcels containing canoes, chinese crackers, or feize, were charged double rate and the regulations stated that 'the maximum weight of chinese crackers carried through parcels dept by any one train will be 14lb.
Stamps were to be used on parcels carried on Lake Wakatipu and over unopened lines being operated by PWD.
The use of stamps fixed to labels caused some problems - particularly dogs. These stamps were fixed to the address tags - bit hard to stick them on the dog I suppose.
Instances have cbme under notice in which the address tags and stamps have been mutilated and in some cases, chewed off by dogs.
This must have been in the "good old days" when goods sheds were extremely busy and every express train had at least one parcel van on the rear not to mention the guards van being packed to the roof.
Guards Van: This van has been in the shelter most of this year to have the beading that holds the roof covering down renewed. This was attached by Bob and Richard recently and a lookout window framework and the t & g around the window replaced. It is intended that this van will sit in the back road opposite the station so that it can be used for displays on open days.
Open Day - 5th Dec: The final one for 1993 will be on December 5th. Please fill out the work notice and return it.
Last year we held a social evening after open day and everyone seemed to enjoy it. This after the final train we intend holding another one.
The club will supply the snags but please bring a salad and your own refreshments. We will put all the goodies on a table and everyone can help themselves.
We are then into daylight saving but hope to be able to black the shop out enough to show a great reel of Bob Mann's movies. Like Eric's, these are extremely good, so mark this date on your calendars.
Working Bees: Yes these are still held, but the number attending varies considerably. The next ones will be held on:November 27th - 28th, December - none as it is Christmas, January 22nd - 23rd.
To make things easier for club supplies, a note book will be kept in the Shanty. When supplies are required, the member needing them should enter them in the book, put what job they are for and initial the entry. We can then check the book and get what is required.
If you can't be bothered with this system, then don't complain when your supplies don't turn up.
The following article is taken from the 2ft gauge railway clubs newsletter. The area described in this article is at the very bottom of the South Island.
MATAURA MAN REBUILDS A PART OF THE PAST
Between 1923 and 1942 Jack MacRae, of Mataura. lived at More's Mill in the Pourakino Valley.
He never expected that half a century after leaving the valley he would return to rebuild something of his past. But during the past month he has worked with the Department of Conservation restoring an old Johnston bush locomotive at Pourakino picnic area in the Longwood Range. The loco was driven for 20 years by Jock's father, Duncan MacRae.
"Sometimes he would take Mum, Barney and me up the bush when he was going for logs with the loco. He would make a seat of chaff sacks on the engine tender on which we would all sit."
"Sometimes he let us put a bit of wood in the firebox, just to make our day. We were five and six, maybe a bit less."
That boyish enthusiasm for steam locomotives has returned to Jock's face. With conservation officer, Chris McMillan and Mataura man Neil Ramage he has rebuilt the engine from a rusted chassis pulled from a swamp, a boiler brought from Slopedown forest near Wyndham, and bogeys and other relics recovered from the Pourakino bush.
Between 1910 and 1954, three Johnston locomotives were used at More's Longwood mills. The Johnston "A" locomotive is a small geared locomotive weighing about 12 tonnes. It was developed at the turn of the century by engineering firm J. Johnston and Sons, of Invercargill, especially for rugged service on bush tramways. It quickly displaced the hundreds of horses previously employed on the job.
About 24 locomotives were built between 1896 and 1930 and were used throughout New Zealand. The locomotives used at More's mills were among the first built, and the last in service being retired in 1954.
Jock says it's a shame the locomotives have not been kept. 'They did most of the work of the mill, yet were scrapped as if they never existed."
The "log lokey" driven by Jock's father, brought logs by bush tramway from loading banks in the forest to the mills. Fueled by slabs of timber from the mill cut into two foot lengths, it pulled two 'rakes' of logs and pushed another. The podocarp and silver beech trees we're felled by two bushmen using a 5ft 6inch crosscut saw and the logs pulled to the loading banks by steam hauler. Another Johnston lokey ferried sawn timber from the mills to the company's own railway siding at Longwood 10 miles away. Jock's father would bank up the loco boiler in the evening. First thing each morning he would pull dampers and by the time he was finished breakfast steam would be up.
The tramway was until the 1940's the mill towns main link with the outside world. On Saturdays, the late shopping night in Riverton, the MacRae family would ride to Longwood on a JAP 1000cc motorbike powered jigger along the tramway, before catching a Model T Ford taxi to Riverton. The uncovered jigger ride back to the mill was always cold, and often frosty or wet. Once a year the mill families would travel to Colac Bay for the railway picnic.
Dad's loco was always cleaned up for the occasion and decorated on the front with ferns. Dad put on the spark-catcher to eliminate any chance of the people in the open box trucks getting burnt. Jock says, "The 10 mile trip would take more than two hours, and a lolly scramble in the box trucks was always a feature of the ride.
"Growing up in the mill town would have made even Tom Sawyer jealous," Jock says. Dad knew the places on the Pourakino River and we would spend Sundays up there swimming and playing. Bobbing for eels, trapping possums and shooting the first deer, are fond memories. There was little importance placed on sport. "If you had any energy left at the end of the working day I suppose people thought it belonged to your boss."
Thomas More, and later More and Sons Ltd, owned three mills in the Pourakino Valley - the little mill and main mill, built in 1901 and 1902 near Granity, and the top mill, (formerly Hensley's mill) which today is the site of the Pourakino picnic area. All the More's mills were linked by bush tramways.
The MacRae family shifted from the little mill to the main mill in 1925. At that time the main mill boasted 24 family homes, the Pourakino Post Office and a store, as well as mill buildings. The main mill was powered by a 95 HP boiler which drove the saws, travelling benches and a sawdust blower which fed the boilers firebox. The mill not only cut timber but also had a planing machine, dressing plant, box factory and lathes for making handles. It produced about 10,000 board feet of podocarp and beech timber a day.
However, the 1930's Depression brought tough times to the mill towns, and Jock remembers there being only one or two days work a week in the bush, and the men working on construction of a road into town. Prosperity returned to More's mills following the election of the first Labour Government in 1935. Every second night Jock's father took six wagons of timber to Longwood, and during the day made two trips into the bush with the log loco.
A wood products factory and drying kiln were built. The road became established and a rural delivery service replaced the Post Office. In 1937 the MacRae family like many others, moved to Riverton. Duncan, and later Jock, who left school to take on a job in the brush factory, commuted to the mill by car, often staying in a mill hut and returning to the family at weekends.
After several years the family returned to the mill town and Jock completed most of a wood-turning apprenticeship before joining the armed forces to see service in Africa and the Pacific during World War II. After the war Jock returned to Mataura. His father had been injured by a log while unloading a loco and had taken on the job working the boilers at the Mataura paper mill.
It wasn't until Easter 1962 that Jock returned to More's mill. The tramline that went up between the rows of houses was now overgrown, the log loco that his Dad had driven for 22 years was on its side and had been for quite a while, the houses were smoke had come from every chimney were vacant and some had iron taken off the roof. More's main mill had closed-in 1961 and shortly after Jock's visit it was dismantled. Its machinery removed for scrap and the site bulldozed.
Today the site of More's little and main mills are hard to distinguish from the hectares of productive farmland which surround them. Jock returned recently and found the concrete foundations for the engine, bull rushes growing over and old sawdust pile, and old logs and discarded rubbish bulldozed into a swamp.
"I could hear the exhausts of the mill engine, the saws cutting into their logs. I pictured the different families and what their homes were like, there were clothes lines full of half frozen sheets and trousers. The five o'clock whistle blew, a sound that could be heard in Orepuki and Otautau on still nights. Dad was still unloading logs around at the skids and we would go around and help him. After putting his engine away in the shed for the night, he would take our hand as we walked the 50 yards home."
Rebuilding the Johnston locomotive at the Pourakino picnic area has been a great thrill for Jock. The loco has been painted and will remain permanently at the site to serve as a reminder of the area's timber milling history. Walks through the regenerating beech forest will reveal remains of the old tramlines and the concrete abutments of bridges. The locomotive restoration is the first stage in upgrading the Pourakino picnic area being carried out by the Department of Conservation.
(The Pourakino picnic area, the site of More's top mill, can be reached by turning on to Omutu Road from the Riverton - Otautau Road, then following Ermedale and Harrington Roads. More's little mill and main mill are sited at the end of Granity Road and are on private property.)
This article was supplied by Society member, Peter Smythe whose fore-fathers were J. Johnston and Sons Ltd, of Invercargill, the builders of the Johnston geared bush locomotives.