Trains West (1)

Press, 29 April 1978, Page 15

Trains West (1)

PAT TAYLOR

looks at some survivors from

the days of steam on the West Coast.

This 33-ton steam locomotive, sitting in the Reefton domain, will be 100 years old this year. It may be the only one of its type left in the world, “and from a historical viewpoint alone, it ought to be lovingly cared for, under cover, and van-dal-proof.” according to a steam enthusiast, and well known breakfast radio announcer, Merv Smith, of Auckland. In a letter to a Greymouth man, Mr Smith said he much doubted whether it could be restored or even rebuilt to working condition, but even as a revered static exhibit, it would be much admired and worth the effort.” The engine is a Single Fairlie, built by the Avonside Engine Company in Bristol, England, in 1878. It was classified R2B by the New- Zealand Railways. It was last owned by the Mines Department, and was used at the Burke’s Creek colliery, near Reefton. According to Mr Smith, what makes the locomotive so unusual is that both lots of wheels, the six drivers under the boiler and the bogie under the bunker, were able to swivel. “Thus the engine was extremely flexible on curved track, and if there was ever a country with lots of that, it is New Zealand.” Robert Fairlie. the designer, had originally designed his Double Fairlie for the famous nar-row-gauge Festiniog railways in Wales. The

Double Fairlie had a central cab and a boiler at each end, with a common or twin firebox between them.

New Zealand had 10 of the engines, according to Mr Smith, although they were somewhat larger than the tiny Welsh originals. One of them, Josephine, or El 75, is preserved “most splendidly” at the Otago Early Settlers' Museum in Dunedin. “Two Double Fairlies are still at work on the Festiniog and to see them hammering their way across the Cob from Portmadoc is worth going many a mile to see,” said Mr Smith. “However, the Double Fairlie has many drawbacks and so Fairlie tried to simplify things a bit with his singles. They were certainly incomparably better engines, or at least were found so in New Zealand, where they all — 21 units in two separate classes — worked well, and were much thought of, right until the late twenties, in New Zealand Railways service,” said Mr Smith. The Inangahua County Clerk (Mr R. J. Penfold), when approached by “The Press,” said that practically no maintenance was done to the locomotive. which after its retirement, had been moved to its present site on railways lines placed on Buller Road. The locomotive was, however, painted from time to time. “In fact,she is about due for another coat now,” he said The Ferrymead Museum in Christchurch had been

seeking the locomotive for its collection. “Ferrymead believe it can be restored, but the longer it sits there the more doubtful that will be,” said Mr Penfold.

The county council had not been opposed to the locomotive’s being moved, but the suggestion had brought widespread opposition from the people of

Reefton, who sought it as part of the district’s coalmining history. The possible answer to its retention in the town was for a group to get to-

gether, possibly including those engineering inclined, to give it a facelift from time to time, and even, possibly, to house it, said Mr Penfold.