MEMBERSHIP AND NEW MEMBERS:
WELCOME to our club and its railway. Our membership continues to grow with some very useful people coming to help with the running or maintenance of our railway.
'Lofty' Meekins has already been put to work on diesels, Linda and Peter Hill have been tidying up the cab of Meremere diesel and 'back-packers special' - #3 carriage. Alan Connor has been helping with some of the background projects, along with new member James Whyte. Dave Scott is now part of the 'Team of Three'. This is greatly appreciated. Read on for other members input.
From the Committee - ALL new members are to receive a 'welcome in' letter. If one is enclosed, you are one of the guinea pigs! We trust this is informative.
OPEN DAYS -
July was busier than normal with Maureen helping Doreen sell tickets. August open day 'blew us away'...... considering it is normally our quieter month. Paula was roped in as ticket seller, and the people kept coming, and coming - and yes, $50 notes were counted! Matthew has certainly increased the 'Sausage sales', well done! An apology to Colin Ewing - "...but Eric really did appreciate the extra DELICIOUS sandwich for his lunch!" Thanks too to Lynda for kitchen help, and appreciation goes to Doreen and Bill King for keeping food stocks and supplies on hand. (Paula mentioned afterwards, she's only been away from Junction for a few months, and she was pleasantly surprised at the number of new faces. Mind you, it's nice to see Paula back).
It is heartening to have such good open days as word of mouth is still our best way of advertising. In the end, every dollar comes in very handy! Thanks to all members who come and help. We actually get a lot of work done also on these days plus, of course - run the trains!!
Colin Swabey has also put out a very good 'information sheet' - so if you PURCHASE a ticket to ride, you get this with your ticket.
The Committee has also undertaken to provide a 'Safety Leaflet' with tickets.
PUBLICITY-
The local 'rag' - (Te Kauwhata Chatter) has been very generous with their publication of club reports. TV 1 Weather mention has been regular also. It was unfortunate that some radio stations continued with PREVIOUS reports, and kept on promoting 'STEAM TRAIN RIDES'. (Their editors had been informed previously that there were NO steam trains operating!!!)
We made the "Front Page" of The Chatter with James Whyte in living colour. Thanks to Chris for supplying the photos of the work on the boiler. Also thanks to Neil Purdie for input. The exercise has resulted in such positive promotion for the Club.
It is still surprising how many people in the Huntly area have still never heard of us or have been out yet to visit!!
Don't forget to visit our WEBSITE on http://www.bushtramwayclub.com This is updated and added to on a very regular basis with thanks to Colin Swabey.
NEXT OPEN DAYS ARE:
October 5th; November 2nd ; and last for 2003 on December 7th:
Please fill out the enclosed work notice and return it. Thanks for returning these too.
PHOTO OPPORTUNITIES-
Thanks to those who make themselves available for promotional material. Eric and his 'Team' will grace many forthcoming grant reports, along with the 'Team of Three'. Please, if you do NOT want to be splashed around in the public domain, please let Teresa know (its actually the overalls or products you are using that she is after!!! Not your bodies)
STEAM LOCOS: Some further progress has been made, but our new boiler inspector hasn't been officially approved just yet.
F 185- The boiler has been checked, looked at, had some ultrasonci testing done and lot of metal thicknessing done. The result of all this work is that we have only a few minor repairs and welding jobs to do. The checking etc took place over 3 days - special thanks to Genesis Power Ltd once again.
We have also started putting fittings back together and fitting blanks on the boiler where some fittings normally bolt on. So, at long last we are able to make some progress on the boiler. Eric has finished the second injector and it has been re-fitted.
Simon and Peter spent a day overhauling two old loco screw jacks that are now mounted on the running board. These are both built by Dubs & Co - makers of the loco. Don has been spotted with his nose to the grind stone in the workshop and head in smoke-box also. I think he was even seen polishing the brass work.
Mike is back on the spark arrestor. Peter & Linda were left scrapping down saddle-tank of F185.
CB 117- This boiler was also looked at and we now know where we can go with the repairs..........
Richard spent a day replacing a stay that needed replacing and is looking at 10 or so more, that are acceptable at the moment.....just! He has also roughly cut out the last section of the boiler barrel that needs replacing.
Peckett- As far as inter-club co-operation goes, this must be the success story of the year!!!
James Whyte of Weka Pass Railway, saw Chris' "ad" on the Federation email, thought he "might" be able to squeeze in the boiler and finally came up and spent most of the day inside trying to get 2 pins out of hangers that were holding the girder stays still in place. Finally, when the boiler-makers said "....Enough, we're off home!...." he had to gas cut the hangers. The boilermaker's gantry crane was needed to get the girder stays out. Thanks to James, Chris and Neil, these girders are now at the Junction. Richard has got all the broken off bolts out of the girders - only one had to be drilled out. The girders are re-useable. They are made of wrought-iron and in good order (except for the landing areas that sit on the fire-box) and can be reshaped.
I tried to get a profile of these landing by using a 'profile gauge', which is basically a lot of thin pins in a holder, that push into the shape you want. I just got the gauge through a hole in the boiler - got the profile and then spent the next half hour trying to get all pins back in their proper place to get the gauge out again!!!!! - and of course, without the profile. (I'll try plastercine next!!!....)
"Why be difficult when, with a little more effort, it could be impossible"
Chris spent another day and a half on the underframe getting one of the axle box horn guides off.
Alan Brown has been scrapping a few years of grease off the wheels ready for painting.
So all in all, some really good progress is being made on our steam locos by a lot of members.
STOP PRESS: As I write this, we have just received notice that we have been granted $4 500.00 towards the overhaul of the Peckett. A grant from Trust Waikato is very welcome at this time. Sincere thanks to their Board for continuing to support our Club.
Remember "If living on a budget is the same as living beyond your means.......
..... except that you now have a record of it"
ROLLING STOCK:
Mines Car- Nothing to report on this except I have just obtained some pieces of shaped wood that fit into the bogies as a cover plate above the leaf springs and cover some joints in the timber bearers. The last of the bogie holding chains are now bolted to the underframe with one having to be made.
XC Wagon- Extremely good progress on this, with the word from the 'Team of Three' that it is "About a month.... .off being finished". Not too sure if this is the 'official word" or not, as I've heard it for the last month!!! (Is it 'glide time'??). Thanks also to Alan Connor for enthusiastic sanding - he looked like our very own Puke Junction Ghost!!
The last white topcoat has now gone on and a start has been made on re-fitting the side ventilators - some of which had to be replaced.
STOP PRESS: The last were fitted Sunday 24th August.
The last door took a bit of fitting and getting to slide easily (even after all our work with the gym crow-bar). Better not to go into the methods used, but the door track at last thought, it had better behave. Not sure if it was the unorthodox methods used -or the associated language!!! iimmmm.
UNFORTUNATELY - the spray-painter got a bit of "over-spray" onto the nice black underframe - looks like our CW Team's will have another wet-weather job!!
A start has been made on racks and fittings for the inside to hang or support our track tools (hoses, shovels, picks etc).
The last major job still to do is the roof. This is being looked into during the next couple of mid-week programmes (well, that was the plan anyway....)
One wet day (since starting this Newsletter) was spent by one CW Work-party crouched under the wagon scrapping and wire-brushing then painting all the underframe they could get at. One even used a CW 'rain-coat' to keep the paint off him (and then spent half-hour cleaning the paint off the rain coat and Yes, he was wearing painting overalls as well!!)
Car-Van and #3 carriage- Dave got introduced to working on the air brakes system, when we did brake over-hauls on these two cars recently. Dave really appreciated the pit we used - we have to crawl under the cars on the sleepers and get rid of lumps of ballast that dug into our backs...... ... ouch!!!!!!
"I'd enjoy the day more ..... if it started much later"
DIESEL LOCOMOTIVES:
401 - Colin Ewing and Alan Manning got a bit cold last open day driving without the cab side windows (there was a frost in the morning), however, they can't complain now as the 'Team of Three' (Harvey, Ian and Dave) have fitted the new windows and frames. The grant for these came from WEL ENERGY TRUST (and just in time too so was greatly appreciated by all). Colin Ewing found a 'reason' to take Nell shopping - and wouldn't you know it, also picked up the locos' new windows. Thanks for organising this.
402 - A start has been made on changing the side rod bushes to grease but, (BUT, surely not!), hopefully still using the old bushes.
The new fittings were made up by Colin Ewing and have now been fitted. (Another job sorted by 'Lofty').
Our new member - Lofty Meekins has had his fingers and tools into the air system of this loco. He has over-hauled most of the main valves and the system seems to be working well, even if we had a few problems last open day (which got sorted out as the day went on) and was mostly just adjusting reducing valves. Peter and Linda also spent some time cleaning the cab-insides of our Meremere diesels.
Work on the DS loco - continues with the engine hood top being undercoated and a rotten bottom section of a cab door replaced - the new section welded in by Trevor.
Goodman Battery Electric - Chris Lucas and helpers requested help from certified members for a trial run of this interesting machine on July 27th. It was able to perform under its own power, but was aided by both Meremere's for stopping purposes. Good progress is going on with this. We are to draw up check sheet and log book for this.
ENGINEERING WORKSHOP: Not many days that someone is NOT in this doing something. Thanks to my sister and another source, we have obtained another 2 sets of shelves for the loft. (A third one is to arrive soon). We have also obtained another pile of ice-cream containers, so the store is starting to look like a store!!
TRACKWORK: This side of the railway has seen a tremendous amount of work put in lately.
Bottom terminus - The main line in this area now has all new sleepers and the back-shunt has been extended slightly.
We still need to clear some toi-toi grass, so it can be extended into the bank, which will be the end-of-the-line. (We have run out of club corridor land). We have measured up the last of the rails needed for the loop.
Junction yard - A few weeks ago I felt an unusual 'bump' as I backed a loco out of the shed. A check showed it was a rail-head collapsed into where the web had rusted through and cracked. Preparation work to replace it was done on August open day.
A good day's work by a CW work party saw this rail removed, sleepers renewed and the rail fastened in place. A "tap" on the other rail sw great slabs of rust fall off, so the opportunity was taken to replace it as well!!
The old rails were 53lbs/yard, made in the 1890's, so it is possible that these rails could have been put down when the yard was formed in 1915 odd!
Glen Afton end - Good progress is being made on this end - out of sight of even most of our members.
Our "passenger train limit board" has now been further shifted out another 50 metres, the stored vehicles pushed another 70 odd metres past this board, and the track overhauled for another 50 metres past this again!!
Between the 'limit board' and the stored vehicles is a curved cutting that we need a digger in to dig out an old clay slip from the sides of the track. The cutting can then be ballasted with new ballast and our 'limit board' further extended again!!!
We recently received 600 X half-round sleepers (400 for the Glen Afton end and 200 for general track work). The delivery of these is another story, as the truck was due at 9.15 AM and eventually arrived at 2.15 PM ............
These sleepers were unloaded onto a flat-top wagon, taken to their storage areas the next day and unloaded and stacked by our CW workparties.
Station Area - Alan (Brown) continues to keep our lawns cut. All yard drains have been given a tidy up by our CW work parties who also week-eaten and cut the grass area on the hill top (picnic area) overlooking the yard. They have also spent a lot of time generally tidying up the area.
Platform - a yellow line has been painted the length of the platform. Colin Swabey organised the paint, then Dave and Harvey finally got time to paint the line...... the only comment I can make about their painting job, was that it took 4 1/2 hours to do, and a lot of that time was spent getting the brushes to work as it started going HARD within a second or so of getting onto the brush - at least that's what they tell me!!!!
It was a very fine day and I don't remember seeing any chairs in the sunny spots.
Talking of chairs, Dave (in his great enthusiasm) has been revamping railway platform seats. (The frames had been stripped, re-painted and tossed in a corner of the workshop and left from previous years) I think you need to speak to Dave to find out what challenges he has come across doing this ''small" job at home. I hear he has stopped banging his head against the wall............... welcome aboard Dave, you're now definitely one of us!!
"If you can keep your head in the midst of all this confusion,
you probably don't understand the situation......."
WORKING BEES: These are still held on the Sunday of the 4th Weekend of each month (yes, you would have noticed, August had five weekends!). We have had tremendous turnouts lately and often have to "THINK HARD" to find meaningful jobs.
Harvey Tempero is in charge of keeping a list of projects on the go. Any considerations see him. Thanks Harvey. Surprising the number that are being worked on too.
I will obviously miss out some names but - as indicated above many pleasing results.
Trevor and Troy Willmot spent most of a day cutting up firewood ready for the long awaited day when we use our steam locos again!!! Sean Roche was well into heavy metal also, with plenty of sparks flying in all directions doing work on points levers. Mark Swabey was roped into helping put up face plates of air vents in AF carriage.
The next planned working bees are Sunday 28th September,
Sunday 26th October (Labour weekend) and
Sunday 23rd November.
Some of our newer members have now a better idea of the many jobs needed to keep our railway running and some of the jobs aren't too clean either!!!
Bill and Doreen continue to provide the refreshments on these days. Don't be afraid to ask for something - they can always say "NO!"......... but they don't. Thanks for the effort into preparing the goodies B & D.
MEMBERS DAY SUNDAY 14TH SEPTEMBER: Yes, this day is still on. We will be holding a shunting school starting at 10.00 am SHARP. This school is a requirement for ALL WHO HELP WITH THE RUNNING OF THE RAILWAY. Even if you are not sure if you do want to train up, it is still useful knowledge. Thanks to Chris Mann (our Deputy General Manager) for taking this. Bring your hand-books and check sheets with you.
After the training school, we will have lunch (provided by Club) and then progress onto playing...... and no doubt this will include a trip along the entire line - with photo opportunities. A day for all the members to meet and greet. See you there.
The Committee has also organised a planting of 'memorial trees' after lunch for our now sadly deceased Members. It would be nice for as many current members as possible to attend at this time.
For an idea of catering, can you please let Jan or Teresa know your numbers coming PRIOR to this date. Email address secretary@bushtramwayclub.com the easiest.
DUMPING OF ANY RUBBISH - The Committee has indicated it is not happy with where rubbish is being dumped. There is to be a concerted effort to drag any unwanted 'stuff' and put in central area to dispose of correctly. NO ONE is to throw or dump ANY rubbish around the club. How about a little pride and tidy up as you go. Remember, you have all been warned.
"SECRETARY'S PRAYER" -
Help me to have the memory of an elephant, and by some miracle let me do all things at once, answer four telephones at the same time and type a letter that "must go today" - even though it won't be signed until tomorrow.
Give me the knowledge of a university professor with my junior certificate of standard education. Let me know without being told where the boss is, what his is doing and when he will be back, and help me to keep cool when I am passed the buck so that he won't look stupid.
And grant me the foresight to not destroy, when I am told to, records that will be asked for within a few days.
The only person who got all of his work done by Friday was ......Robinson Crusoe.
PROPOSED RAILWAY BILL: This is the proposed Bill that is largely the result of the Ministerial enquiry into Tranzrail's safety. The Bill has been introduced into Parliament and is presently open for submissions.
I have read through the Bill and made submissions to our National Federation so they can make joint submissions. As you can guess, the Bill will not make things any easier for heritage railways and certainly the costs will be much greater ...........
Reminder to all Club Members
SHUNTING SCHOOL Sunday 14th September 2003
Starting promptly at 10.00 am - vicinity of "Recreation Room"
(morning tea 9.30 at Pukemiro Station building)
This school will be a refresher for those who have already passed their Club
shunting test and a school for those who want to learn the correct methods and signals.
This school is a requirement of our safety scheme and is therefore a
requirement for all members who help/ or wish to help with the running of our railway.
Please make sure you bring your shunting hand-books! See Colin Jenner if you require anything on this matter.
(Signed)
Colin Jenner
General Manager