NEWSLETTER - March 2005
SUBSCRIPTIONS:
Many thanks to all who have paid their 2005 subs. Any subs not paid by the end of March mean you are automatically removed from our mailing list and cease to be a member. A red dot in the square indicates yours is now due.
Remember – any donation over $5.00 is tax deductible.
GRANTS:
An interesting article was found in an English restoration magazine recently. Over there, a large part of their grant money comes from the Heritage Lottery Fund. It has been in existence for just over 10 years and given out 3 billion pounds – yes $NZ10 billion – to over 15,000 projects. The transport and industrial heritage sector has taken a large slice of this cake with 36 million pounds being allocated to the heritage railway movement alone. Makes New Zealand minds boggle what we could do with that sort of funding! The down side is what would happen if there was no longer a HLF?
This Club does pretty well with grants from various funds - but wouldn’t it be lovely to put in for and received the large sum needed to get our Heisler loco overhauled, and be in steam again!
AGM:
By the time you receive this newsletter, official notice of our AGM will have been received by you. It is very important you attend this meeting and elect a committee you think can help progress our railway.
Be Kind
When you have collected a Committee
From those prepared to stand
Don’t criticise the things they do
But give a helping hand
They have tried to do their best
For each and everyone
And please –don’t whinge with the rest
Come and say “Well done” instead!!!”
OPEN DAYS:
Yes it’s nearly that time again. The first for 2005 will be held on:
April 3
May 1
June 5 (Queen’s Birthday Weekend).
We hope members will turn up to help man – (sorry, ‘woman our railway’ doesn’t sound correct) – our railway.
Please fill out the attached work-notice and return it (bring to AGM will be fine!)
CHARTER TRIPS:
Already this year we have run 2 and had several more enquiries.
The first was Waikato University Creche and the second was Huntly Lions & Rotary. They came out for a BBQ tea and evening! The only problem was that the expected number coming doubled at the last minute! Thanks especially to Bruce, Harvey, Linda, Peter, Jan and Colin who helped with these.
On the loco front – a lot of work has been done during the summer.
F185: The wash-out plug holes at the bottom front of the firebox were successfully ground and tapped. Not a lot of room to work in, however Harvey and Ian were able to re-tap the holes OK.
The boiler is now going through its hydraulic test – a rather long job. As the boiler was fitted, Don spent a ….few hours in the smoke-box re-expanding tubes that leaked – (some POURED–) water. Once all these were tight the boiler was slowly pumped up to 160lbs until the door joint on the small mud-hole door let go. All this time, any leaking tubes were taken up.
There are several gaskets leaking but if we can get the pressure up to required 220lbs, any leaking tubes can be re-expanded and then the other leaks repaired.
The spark arrestor is almost ready to put the top on.
PECKETT: Dave Mann spent the best part of two weeks at the Junction. His main job was to get the new steel for the running boards drilled and painted and fitted to the loco. These were all completed and are sitting on the loco. He also spent some time cleaning the inside and outside of the top section of the cab. The outside is now black and the inside still in its undercoat.
Also during this time the axle-boxes were returned with the brass liners.
CB: Attempts were made to rivet the first patch to the boiler but our air compressors and receivers just aren’t big enough.
Some more rivets were made.
DIESELS:
#401: The radiator was removed and taken to Auckland just before Christmas. At the time of writing – it is partly in pieces.
Bob and son William have been chipping the old outside paint off while one of our Community Work girls has been following up with a new paint job.
Colin E and Alan spent a day on the head gasket job with Colin spending another couple also.
Lofty has volunteered to put a new air system on this loco as emergency brakes for the carriages. He purchased a big box of pipe fittings, a couple of gauges and regulating valve…. He has now gone off to Sri Lanka to help with some of the new houses needed as a result of the tsunami.
DS loco: Trevor Willmot and Wally continue to battle away with the radiator. Last time down, Trevor soldered the new thin tube-plate in place (under cover of the new welding workshop!)
SHANTY:
If you use the club facilities, we expect you to clean up when you have finished. This includes not leaving dirty washing around hoping someone else will wash it, and clean out the fridge. The condition of some of the food????? left in the fridge is very concerning and someone else must find the time to clean this out.
This is not too much to expect from everyone.
WOODWORK WORKSHOP PROJECT:
This project was held up until we found a ‘never found’ culvert. In our 35 years at the Junction we have never seen the entrance to this one but all water went away – so no problem!… until it was needed to be exposed to be surveyed for estimates of this project.
Part of the workshop project is to fill this gully behind the shanty with any overburden dug out of the workshop site.
The Council Surveyor did part of the job but couldn’t complete it (until the culvert was found). The digger brought in, in December was unable to locate it - as reported in January’s newsletter –still no luck!
After much discussion on ways to find it and the present hold up – we decided to get a bigger digger in. Even after 4 hours – no sign of the said culvert …and we started to wonder…(more of those expletive short words), and wonder….. It had to be somewhere!
On the VERY LAST half of a cut across the centre of the gully the digger struck concrete – and there was the culvert – in the centre of the gully. The culvert entrance has an 8ft riser with the culvert itself coming off one side at the bottom of this riser. No wonder deep digging further out hadn’t struck the culvert.
There was a hard layer of clay across the grill on top of the riser and the rest all clear.
The surveyor has been out to complete his job and our project can start again!!!!
CARRIAGES:
Annual checks of #3 car and car van were carried out in early February.
Bunk car: Bob and David have completed replacing the T&G on one side with grooved plywood. Some paintwork has also been carried out.
Mines car: Work continues on this. The new windows and trim have been fitted to the overhauled side. Dave and Harvey recently pulled one of the veranda gates apart to get some bad rust from between two pieces of steel – cleaned everything up and went to bolt it all back together – Doesn’t fit!! – so weld up the old holes and drill new ones.
Work is presently concentrating on the steelwork for the verandas, with these now basically in place.
Colin Swabey spent a day on his back, hands and knees, and sitting on a box painting the underframe black again. A few more days to go yet Colin. Linda and Peter have spent a couple of days helping with this painting also. They have cleaned out the ‘junk’, scrubbing and cleaning the inside of this car, with The Team of Three concentrating on completing the internal paintwork. The next thing is to replace the 3 X 3 square wooden supports with steel posts. Plans for the replacement of the roof is also taking place – hopefully before it rains!!
BLACKSMITH’S WORKSHOP:
Richard boxed up the edges of the floor at the rear and our Community Workers barrowed a large truck-load of fine metal – crusher dust – to fill up the floor to level. Another part of the workshop finished!
Timber has now arrived for all the barge boards and corner boxing. The old workbench close by will soon be ‘humped’ into the workshop and have a new top fitted.
WORKING BEES:
These are a very important part of our railway and we need as many members as possible to turn up on these days and help with the work.
The next ones are: March 27, April 24 and May 29th
LAWNMOWERS:
Our mowers still give problems even though they have been worked on - often.
TRACKWORK:
Not much to report in this area. Our long term weed-spray has given the track a new look – looks more as if the spray was a high grade fertiliser! Just as well we bought the ‘Round-up’!
The very wet Christmas and early January certainly gave any new growth an extra boost.
CW WORKPARTIES:
These continue to regularly visit us and have been mainly working around The Junction yard catching up on the weeds and growth in general - plus a few other vital jobs mentioned elsewhere in this newsletter.
Canon Balls – Did you know?
…It was necessary to keep a good supply of cannon balls near the cannon on war ships. But how to prevent them from rolling about the deck was the problem! The best storage method devised was to stack them as a square based pyramid, with one ball on top, resting on four, resting on nine, which rested on sixteen. Thus, a supply of 30 cannon balls could be stacked in a small area right next to the cannon. There was only one problem – HOW to prevent the bottom layer from sliding/rolling from under the others?
The solution was a metal plate with 16 round indentations, called ‘A Monkey’. But if this plate was made of iron, the iron balls would quickly rust to it. The solution to the rusting problems was to make BRASS monkeys. Few landlubbers realise that brass contracts much more and much faster than iron when chilled. Consequently, when the temperature dropped too far, the brass indentations would shrink so much that the iron cannon balls would come right off the monkey. Thus, it was quite literally, cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey.
And all this time, you thought that was a vulgar expression, didn’t you?
Currently, COLD is not the problem at The Junction – but the searing heat!! Ask our boys who are working in the full heat of the day on the various projects – and the perpetual surveillance of the tank water levels!!
Thanks to David Scott for supplying photos for a recent full-page promotion of The Club in our local paper “The Chatter” – part of tourism activities within North Waikato area. Our spies know of a ‘pamphlet’ that has now evolved into a booklet on ‘Club, equipment and area rail History’. Thanks to those working on this “…in the back room”. It is looking very impressive! Working towards a limited edition ready for our 40th anniversary. Watch this space.
