H A P P Y N E W Y E A R
OPEN DAYS: The 1993 season has been and gone and with it passenger trains to Rotowaro. November open day was a reasonably quiet day although passengers were spaced throughout the day.
December was much the same but a lot better than last year.
FIRE FIGHTING: Colin and Keith have spent a lot of time working on a motor to drive a larger fire pump. The only real way to get it to start was to put the V belt for the drill press onto the motor and start the electric motor - not very practical if you are way down the line! They finally gave up with this motor and thoughts turned to using our existing petrol motor with a larger pump. This pump is on loan from Bob.
Meantime our scrounger - Ian - had managed to obtain a very suitable hose reel and hose. The whole lot was fitted up as a joint effort. We - sorry Andrew - started a couple of fires during the December open day but as the fire train' was following, they were swiftly dealt with and caused no problems.
LOCO SHELTER: Work continues on this with some spouting now added to one side of the extension. Richard has been fitting some steel cables for bracing at each end. This has been done at the Counties request for wind bracing.
F185: The saga of the boiler is now completed. We managed to obtain the services of 2 welders from the power station to weld the extensions onto the smokebox and cut the new bolt holes. The welders were officially given the job and arrived at the Junction with all necessary tools including a diesel driven welder and of course gear for smoko.
Their work was much appreciated and has resulted in the boiler now bolted into place, The coal boxes are also in place and the next job is to put the cab back on.
CALENDARS: We still have some RES wall calendars available at $8 each.
Ds LOCO: The wheelsets for this were put under the loco with an extra effort and long piece of pipe by Richard* As he got the last one under he noticed a bad crack in the frame that the engine is bolted to. This frame was removed by Richard and Mike during their spare time on December open day. The crack - plus another one found just before removal - have been ground out and welded. They also found the other side of the engine had no tight bolts onto its frame and this would have led to a lot of stress on the cracked side. The next step is to refit the engine frame and bolt the engine down.
NO.3 CAR: Bob has made up some new window sills and fitted them. We have purchased the paint and the girls will slap it on this summer on the carriage ofcoursel
END OF YEAR DO: Following on from last year,, we held a Christmas do for all present after the last train for the year. Teresa had put a lot of thought into hats with comments and awards for all present. Somehow she forgot one for herself. Fortunately someone got wind of this and lo and behold, she got an award in the shape of a spoon. A BBQ tea followed and then it was time to view some of Bob's movies. One was of our railway in its early days with Dick Lawrence and Rupert Aldridge among the workers. Strange - everyone looked younger toot
Two were of particular interest - one showing the Ongarue sawmill machinery in action and the other Climax 1650 working on their tramway. This one of the Climax had a rerun on everyones request. Some of the logs on the train made todays pine logs look like matches.
The evening was rounded off with a cuppa about 9.30p.m.
P.D. GANG: We seem to have lost the P.D. gang for the time being but last time they were out, they put in 22 sleepers towards Downers Crossing.
Golden Wedding Anniversaries: I am told that celebrations were held for Marg and Bert Walker and Ron and Isabel Jenner. Congratulations. Can't really see me being married that long.
Early in November we had another meeting with Coalcorp about plans for our railway.
Their proposed timetable is: December 1993 - repair slump at sandfill. Mid January onwards - lift railsets from section of line to be cut off by new main road.
A terminus is also to be developed at the new bottom end of our line and Rotowaro station is to be re-sited during the summer of 1994 - 95. I must say however, that Coalcorp are somewhat reluctant to give a more definite timetable.
One extremely wet day recently, Bob and Richard decided to have a good cleanup around the saw bench in the hall. A lot of junk vanished and you can now move around a lot easier. The only trouble with a cleanup is you can never find anything afterwards
LEVEL CROSSINGS: With all the level crossing accidents recently, it is timely to remind club members that we have 3 level crossings on our line, They are MacDougalls crossing, the access to Trev and Maxines house and Downers crossings. The laws that road traffic and railways operate under are very clear - road MUST give way to rail.
It is extremely important that all are aware to reduce speed at the crossings and be prepared to stop. Last year, I came close to collecting an empty coal truck at MacDougalls crossing. Not the best when you have a carriage load of kindy kids behind the engine.
Our railway is not in use every day so we need to be extra cautious.
The attached article on ollie Smith was compiled and photocopied by Ian Jenner. The written story was in a recent trucking magazine and the photos gleaned from an old NZR staff bulletin. The photo of the train crossing another line is at Mamaku where the bush tram crossed the main NZR line at Rotorua.
ollie also had some rather weird vehicles - a double ended loco - Dodge I think it was. This was 2 cabs welded together and this saved turning the loco. He also had a truck with a crane on it - very useful down the line. His trucks on rails were also used on another bush tram at Mamaku that served other sawmills. This tram went in the opposite direction to the photo and crossed the main Putaruru -Rotorua road.
Note the rear log bogie in the photo. NZR's sawmill used a lot of old carriage bogies for log bogies - a lot of them WMR ones. I can remember about 20 bogies on a siding that ran beside the trees to the left of the photo.
WORKING BEES: It is extremely likely we will have extra working bees at short
notice to lift rails at Rotowaro.
Our normal ones are: January 22-23
February 26-27
March 26-27
There is a tremendous amount of track work to be done before we start running in April.
A lot of it is made easier by our air compressor in the track wagon. This allows the use of air driven tools when re-sleepering.
Trev and Ian recently unloaded 3 wagons of tracksets and turnout parts onto our store area by the sandfill. These had sat on the wagons most of the winter. The wagons were returned to Rotowaro ready for re-loading. Andrew spent the day unbolting a 701b turnout. This was the one Eric put together to connect our siding into NZR but NZR would not allow its use because of damage to their own 701b turnouts from the C class coal wagons.
We wish all readers the compliments of the season and hope you are able to assist our railway during 1994. Although some jobs get completed, the workload never lessens and the number of willing helpers doesn't increase much.
FRONT END LOADER: For many years we have nearly obtained a tractor with front end loader bucket. First there was the one Bob used at Epsom milk factory and obtained when the plant closed, Somehow it never got to the Junction. Then Eric arranged another which arrived but was found to have a badly broken motor.
Bobs tractor - worked on by Colin - was finally delivered and has done a few jobs. It has been housed under a lean to built by Richard and Bob. I have even seen a photo of 2 moreporks sitting on the lean to.
The loader will prove very useful around the Junction as there is always something to be shifted.