NEWSLETTER - May 2004
SUBSCRIPTIONS:
Welcome to our new members – and we have had a few since last newsletter. Our membership is now over the 100 mark– the highest ever.
We hope you will join in the club activities at our railway and enjoy the involvement.
OPEN DAYS:
The first was held on 4/4/04. Our passengers’ numbers, while not spectacular, were better than some early season open days. The number of work notices returned was pathetic and I had to try and mind-read who may turn up to help run the trains, man the stations etc.
The next ones are May 2nd
June 6th (Queens Birthday)
July 4th
We need a couple of extra members to help in the station. Thanks to Sean and Linda for their recent help. Any extra members were busy on the various work projects or talking to our visitors.
Please make sure the attached work notice is filled out and ensure it is returned.
AGM:
This was held on 14/3/04 and attended by 32 members – the highest attendance ever.
Teresa stood down as Secretary and was replaced – in part – by Margaret Alabaster, a long time member of the club. The rest of the Committee remains the same.
Colin Ewing - Chairman
Maureen Swabey - Treasurer
Bruce McLuckie - Vice Chairman
Colin Jenner - General Manager
Mike Andrews
Colin Swabey
Mike Campbell
Jan Jenner
Harvey Tempero
The annual meeting was a pretty quiet affair and all members were brought up to date with what is happening and future plans. A very delicious afternoon tea was had afterwards.
CHARTER TRIPS:
One was run in mid March for a group from Ffestiniog Railway in Wales. They were naturally disappointed we had no steam loco going but enjoyed their quick visit, and have promised to be back in 3 years.
Another one is booked for mid May.
STEAM LOCOS:
F185
The original piece of pipe and plate for the internal dry pipe of the boiler was not acceptable to our boiler inspector – even with extra paperwork. A hunt was on to find another source and if you have ever tried to buy ˝ metre of specialty pipe or steel you’ll know it’s almost impossible. If you want 6 metres, it can be imported if necessary but anything under that – forget it.
A boiler-making company in Dannevirke finally supplied us the small piece of plate needed and located a company that donated the piece of pipe needed. We even got the required certificates and all is acceptable to our boiler inspector. The time taken to finally get what we needed – 5 months and untold hours of phone calls and paperwork.
These will be made into the replacement dry pipe in the near future.
April open day was spent annealing one end of all the tubes – the rest will be done next working bee or open day.
Those on this job were Eric – also acting as waiter to keep food and drink supplied to Simon and Don. Others helped at various times.
The ‘straight shooter’ funnel was removed by Mike in preparation for fitting the balloon stack.
PECKETT
The wheel-sets are still at Glenbrook and last I heard they had ground some of the crankpins but still had the rest to grind and then the tyres to turn.
The boiler is still at the sandblasters for blasting and painting.
Our ‘tame welder’ has spent many hours building up the landing areas of the girder stays. These are now all back at the Junction but all need profiling. Thanks to this Simon once again, considering he is not even a member!
CB
Work pushes ahead on this boiler. In all 89 firebox stays are now fitted and, after checking by the boiler inspector, will be seal welded. This is in addition to the 20 odd already replaced and seal welded.
Richard is presently reaming the threads out of the firebox tube-plate as the new stay tubes will be welded in rather than screwed in.
ROLLINGSTOCK:
XC WAGON
This recently overhauled wagon is now fully fitted out as our track wagon and in regular use.
MINES CAR
A tremendous amount of time and effort continues to go into this project. I sometimes wonder if the ‘Team of Three’ shouldn’t wear dark glasses all the time they are working on it – mightn’t see so many things that need replacing that way!
A major job has been replacing a curved roof beam at the end of the roof – this beam also forms the top of the veranda rail support. The old one was found to be beyond repair and took about 3 days to fabricate a new one. The gear that turned up to do this included Dave’s bandsaw, planer, portable planer, router plus a large assortment of hand-tools. The end is now at the stage that the veranda rails are being fitted. The door is having all the old layers of paint stripped off it. Harvey pulled the door lock apart and some pieces had 333 stamped on them while another had 328. Our car is No. A328 and in NZR days every piece of a car or loco had the number stamped on it for easy identification. Under the layers of paint on one door – was “Do not lean – DANGEROUS” – so that was using as few words as possible I guess for those days.
The new roofing iron has arrived and although it is not yet fitted, many –many moments had been spent trying to ‘FIT’ the species of the roof to the supports!! JUST GUESS what doesn’t fit????? (and no, it wasn’t Harvey’s drawings that were up the shoot!) – so back to the roofing manufactures they trundle. To save time !! this is in coloured steel – probably the cheapest in the long run as they have calculated.
JIGGER: STOP PRESS:
It has just been noted that funding has been confirmed from Sentinel Trust for the badly needed upgrade of this rolling stock. The Jiggers, in the past, were a very good money maker, but unfortunately due to badly needed (expensive) maintenance, they kept being put down the priority list of expenses. Harvey, Dave and Ashley will be very pleased to be able to get on with this work. Thank you to this Trust for the financial input!
DIESEL LOCOS:
402
This has been the main project over the summer as it had to be going again for April open day. A few more members could have helped with this as some who did help, had to be taken off F185 and Mines Car overhauls.
New sliding windows have been fitted; amazingly the cab sides didn’t need ‘adjusting’ to make the windows fit.
The radiator really turned into a problem. A large proportion of the tubes were blocked and once the tubes were out of the frame – a lot were found to have corroded ends where the copper tubes had split where the rubber grommets held the tubes in placed in the frame. Fortunately the radiator company had an identical radiator that should have gone for scrap many months ago but somehow hadn’t. They were able to make a good one out of the two and we also ended up with all the parts to make up a spare.
The ends of the corroded tubes have small holes in them that could be soldered up when needed.
The radiator was finally ready in mid March, collected, put in the loco by our Community Work teams and the motor trial run 2 days after the radiator was collected. We had long suspected an oil leak in the front of the motor but no obvious one was found. The felt seal in behind the fan and compressor belt pulley was replaced. Every cover that oil could possibly come from was taken off and sealed.
Once the motor was test run, a water leak was found from a flexible pipe joiner section on the hot water return pipe to the radiator. This was replaced but 2 others on the same pipe looked rather sad. To replace these was a major job as sections of the pipe had to come off – after the diesel return line and tappet covers had been removed. I think there was more blue smoke from the engine compartment than the engine normally puts out the exhaust!!! To replace these 2 sections of rubber hose took 1.5 days.
The loco was also given a rough paint job to get rid of chipped or rusty areas. Sanding down and painting the cab roof took 3 days and 3 coats of paint.
This is the most work we have ever carried out on one of our diesel locos so far.
#401: STOP PRESS:
We have just heard back from “Scottwood Group” that they are funding $5000 towards the overhaul work on this important loco. (At least we know what to expect, as #402 has just had what is the same work carried out)….. sincere thanks for this essential grant. Members, you can’t say the Committee is not on “your case”…! Thank you to this Trust for the generous financial support
DS LOCO
Wally continues to battle on with this loco and it looks good with all the new paint.
GRANTS:
Other grants are currently in ‘the pipeline’. We do not always anticipate being successful, but when we are – remember, it is only those projects specifically funded that allow the work to either be started or continued with. Sadly. this is a fact of life. But with our members generous work output, it is very rare that we are declined!! So thank you to all our workers!, even those behind the scenes.
We have also received a generous grant from an historical society based in Auckland. Thank you to our members John and Joy who helped this along. Colin Ewing is ‘speaking’ to another interested party also.
SPONSORSHIP is part of the important support we receive. Our ‘engineering and operating section’ will be no doubt be aware you are all to be issued with (forthcoming) new logo on new overalls. These save the club (and no doubt yourselves) a lot of money protecting your street-clothes, so please take due care when they are in the public eye. Because of ‘GENESIS’ practical support this Club continues to forge ahead with its objectives – bear that in mind when you are reading this newsletter (also sponsored by Genesis), riding in a steam loco (soon!) and the myriad of other essential items needed at the club. We also have our ‘passenger warning advise’ notices organised through Colin Swabey and his contacts – thus, Once again, it is thanks to our members for arranging this practical support.
TRACKWORK:
Ian did his 6 monthly inspection of the line and highlighted a few areas needing attention.
Bob M spent part of a day with some C.W. help regauging an area near the top of Pukemiro yard.
A partially blocked culvert and its outlet drain were dug out by a C.W. team – one looked more as if he had been dragged through the culvert. His white pants and T shirt had many different colours of brown and yellow on them at the end of the day.
A lot of time has been spent re-sleepering the back-road opposite the station at Pukemiro. While the job is far from over, a good start has been made while other jobs are being done in the area. This siding was owned and maintained by Pukemiro Collieries and last re-sleepered in 1959 using 2nd hand sleepers out of the Auckland Tramway system. Some are well past their use-by date – even as kindling!!
The large amount of other jobs being done at present has meant almost no time to work at the Glen Afton end on the track overhaul job.
Some re-sleepering has been carried out in the fern cutting above Downers Crossing with more needing attention.
Special mention to our newest (and youngest) working members – Adam and Tim. They put in a great deal of sweat on Sunday 25th and upgraded about 50 mts trackwork, replacing and packing joint sleepers, fish-plates etc. .., and then went on a practical “training run” with Ashley. The work output had The Junction alive with members on projects. Thank you all.
WORKSHOP EXTENSION:
Ever since our workshop was built, we knew it wasn’t big enough. An extra bay was built on during construction, it still isn’t big enough. We have long muttered about the need for a lean-to type shed where welding or blacksmithing type work could be done. The framework for this is now in place but we will need to get a grant for the iron for the roof. So far the work has been done by Richard, C.W. teams, Peter & son - and a few others. We will need to look at the cladding in materials so the forging work (metal/ not the printing of the ‘folding stuff’) can be carried on with under shelter.
ELECTRICAL WORK:
Bob W has been back and tidied up some of the wiring to some power points at the end of the loco shed. There is still a few large lights to check out – and then think about power to the workshop extension!
STATION WORK:
This whole area continues to be kept tidy and really looks good. This work is done by Alan B, C.W. teams, Jan and a few others.
Peter and Linda have been painting the signal levers.
The rubber tyred trolley has been given a clean and paint by our C.W. teams.
All lawns and long grass have been caught up with. Trev and Troy Wilmot keep our mowers in order – sometimes a difficult job as they get a hard life.
PUBLICITY:
Articles about us continue to appear in the local newspapers.
We recently received an inquiry from a family from Rotorua who had read about us in a magazine ‘NZ Today’ while flying to Australia.
We certainly get a lot of visitors looking around the Junction. Not very many days when someone isn’t visiting
Ted Pointon and Alan Bellamy : Both of these were never members of our club.
Ted – passed away on 5/1/04 after a long illness. I have known Ted since the early 60’s when I remember him and his brother Ken rolling a set of driving wheels for a loco they were building into the Model Engineers in Panmure. Ted and his family designed, built and operated their narrow gauge railway at Whangaparoa, now being run by Ted’s wife Julie and their son Scott. Ted worked for NZR as a steam loco driver and then left to drive the steam locos at Westfield Freezing Co. He was behind Glenbrook Railways’ steam loco overhauls for many years and was responsible for getting our Federation’s present boiler code accepted and approved by Ministry of Transport. He also wrote several other codes for the maintenance and operation of steam locos. He was always ready to delve into his memory or books to answer questions.
Alan – passed away on 8/2/04, was a noted railway historian. He had worked for NZR’s traffic branch ending up and retiring in Tauranga. He had a huge collection of books, files and photos – a lot of them on bush railways.
Both will be missed for the input into our hobby.
HUNTLY RAILWAY:
The railway scene at Huntly continues to change and will soon have a major change.
The new station is near the top end of the loop on a fairly short platform. The station itself is more like a curved bus shelter and has finally been fitted with seats – but no lights yet, only the large yard lights. Passenger trains do stop at the new station – only if the passengers are pre-booked so train control can be notified to switch the points for the loop.
The old station has been sold to Huntly Mining Museum for $1 and will probably eventually be located about where the old Weavers Crossing open cast mine screens were. They have another month to find the money and shift it.
No, BTC is not interested in the project -or going to be involved.
A level crossing is being built where the old branch line platform was to allow the SH1 bypass to be straightened. A new overhead road bridge is presently being built.
Good to see Tony Hinton out from UK for a visit for a couple of weeks. He timed his visit so he could attend our AGM but also spent a lot of time in New Plymouth as his father has been very ill. A special thanks too Tony for the pinion starter for #402, (now, where was that shopping list for #401?). Yes, we understand fully when you said the “last minute hic-cups getting the thing delivered to you in time for your flight over here. Half-hour to spare is plenty of time!!”
To all of our other members and family suffering ills, chills, aches and pains – lets hope they are bearable and you are able to spring back out to “Puke Junction” to take your mind of things. Our thoughts go to you all.
-From the Committee-:
WORKING BEES:
There has been a lot of discussion about the timing of these as it is also Committee meeting day. It is hoped that we can start the working bees at 9 AM and the Committee meetings at 10.30 AM. This should leave some time to get everyone sorted out on their jobs before the meeting. Please make sure you bring your own lunches. The club will continue to supply tea or coffee.
If you get caught out, I am sure there will be something left in the bottom of the barrel.
Remember, they are on the Sunday of the 4th weekend of the month. The next ones are :-
April 25th
May 23rd
June 27th
July 25th
There is heaps to do and I haven’t noticed any of the jobs completing the work themselves, even though you may watch hard and wish!
Harvey has a long – and growing – list of jobs waiting to get done.
FIRE-PUMP MOTOR:
Could you please contact Colin Jenner if you know of its where-abouts. We weren’t aware it needed to be ‘removed’ for any repairs, and wish to have this back NOW!
TRAINING SCHOOL:
We are also going to run the next operating training school on SUNDAY 23RD MAY beginning at 9.30 am (if you are early enough, morning tea will be served at 9.15 am).
***** All operating or trainee members ARE REQUIRED TO ATTEND!!! ****
(write this on calendar NOW!)
If you are not sure, attend anyway!! We would love to see YOU.
All new members – welcome aboard. All members SHOULD have filled in their membership slips by now. If you have sent subscription (thanks), but it is essential you return your completed forms as well). Have YOU overlooked this matter?
Subject : Born 80's or before?
Really interesting...
According to today's regulators and bureaucrats, those of us who were kids in the 50's, 60's, 70's and early 80's probably shouldn't have survived, because......
Our baby cots were covered with brightly coloured lead-based paint which was promptly chewed and licked. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, or latches on doors or cabinets and it was fine to play with pans.
When we rode our bikes, we wore no helmets, just shorts and sandals or thongs and playing card 'clackers' on our wheels. As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags. Riding in the passenger seat was a treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle – tasted the same.
We ate dripping sandwiches, bread and butter pudding and drank soft drink with sugar in it, but we were never overweight because we were always outside playing. We shared one drink with four friends, from one bottle or can and no one actually died from this. We would spend hours building billy-carts out of scraps and then went top speed down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into stinging nettles a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back before it got dark. No one was able to reach us all day and no one minded.
We did not have Playstations or X-Boxes, no video games at all. No 99 channels on TV, no videotape movies, no surround sound, no mobile phones, no personal computers, no Internet chat rooms.
We had friends - we went outside and found them.
We shot each other with rubber bands and played street cricket, and sometimes that ball really hurt.
We fell out of trees, got cut and broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits. They were accidents. We learnt not to do the same thing again.
We had fights, punched each other hard and got black and blue – we learned to get over it.
We walked to friend's homes. We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and ate live stuff,
And although we were told it would happen, we did not have very many eyes out, nor did the live stuff live inside us forever.
We rode bikes in packs of 7 and wore our coats by only the hood. Our actions were our own. Consequences were expected.
The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke a law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law. Imagine that!
This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers and problem solvers and inventors, ever. The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.
And you're one of them. Congratulations!
Pass this on to others who have had the luck to grow up as real kids, before lawyers and government regulated our lives, for our own good.
(If you aren't old enough, thought you might like to read about us).
