Plenty of work for train refurbishers

Press, 16 June 1988, Page 7

Plenty of work for train refurbishers

About 40 staff in the finishing centre at the Addington Workshops are continuing to spruce up railway carriages in a flood of work. The workshops’ rolling stock division production manager, Mr Graham Aitken, said staff were working on two observation cars and a servery for the successful Tranz-Alpine Express. He said the group was also working on a prototype for an observation window at the back of a carriage to allow people to stand at the end of the train and see back down the line. Two more servery cars for the Southerner and two more carriages afor the ski-ers’ express, running between Auckland and Mount Ruapehu, are in preparation. The bulk of the ski-ers’ express, a joint venture between the Railways Corporation, Kiwi Lager, and a private operator, has already gone on to the North Island route. The carriages were painted at the workshops. The locomotive was painted in Wellington. Two more observation cars will also be done for the Picton train when the present work is finished, in about three weeks. “We are very busy but we have enough staff to do the work,” Mr Aitken said. The group will also work on two further carriages which have been damaged in the North Island.