Friday, April 16, 2010

On Tour pt III: really out into the back blocks

While in palmy and having a spare day (there don't seem to be any other type there...) I took to road less traveled across to Pahiatua, to visit the preservation group there. Again it wasn't open (you would think that with 4 clear days these guys could seriously get something done) so I had a wander around the covered area.

Heres another W11 insulated van. they seem to be rather common, but I've not yet seen one restored.

Ok, so you don't want to see wagons, Pahiatua is famous for having the last remaining twinset railcar bits in the world.



As you can see, these ones are not in crash hot condition, but I think that the main project is inside the shed, which I couldn't get into (and I would have loved to have seen the wairarapa car in there). I took sme more pictures, but none of the underframe, so sorry to all those who were dying to model an Ac 'grass grub' (I guess you will all just have to die a little more).


A nice detail shot of the bogie, without brake cylinders.

Finally, heres the odd beast that they use to shunt the yard. Its an odd wee beasty that some kind reader will be able to give us some more info on.

3 comments:

Andrew Hamblyn said...

The odd beast is a small Price that spent all its life employed by the Lactose Dairy Company at Kapuni, right at the very end of the Kapuni branch in South Taranaki.

The paint scheme applied to the Price is all thats left of the aformentioned company's beautifull maroon and gold lined fleet paint scheme that was applied to all their road going vehicles and fleet of Foden milk tankers.

Lactose were known for the care and pride they took in their equipment and as the Price was part of the "fleet" maintained by the onsite mechanics, it was alway in fine condition.

With the demise of "Lactose" as an independant company, being swallowed by dairy giant Fonterra a couple of years ago, the road fleet were transfered from Kapuni to Fonterra's big Whareroa plant, and duely put out to pasture, not fitting the company truck mold ( Volvo or Scania ).

As time progressed and Fonterra's production and shipping requirements changed, rail traffic ceased from the little Lactose Plant at Kapuni and the Price became redundant.

If memory serves me right, it was about this time last year that the Price was transfered by truck to Paihiatua as a back up engine to the Tr shunt loco already there. I think since then it has been "taken in" by the Paihiatua Railcar Group.....

Hope this helps.

Andrew Hamblyn said...

ps, its chain driven and has Coby exhaust on it, making rather loud for its size....

Southern Rails said...

I reckon you could build an unpowered version of the little price and hook it up to a powered VRA or VRB. Might put it on my list of things to do.