OLD INVERCARGILL

Southland Times, Issue 19458, 24 January 1925, Page 11

OLD INVERCARGILL

PIONEER’S REMINISCENCES The illustrated supplement dealing with the early history of Invercargill published in the Southland Times of December 9 and 10 has created widespread interest among old Southlanders in all parts of New Zealand. The following letter has been received from Mr W. R. F. Fraser, of Auckland, who was for many years on the staff of the Bank of New Zealand in Invercargill and Wyndham. I congratulate you on your splendid journalistic enterprise in rooting out and reproducing so many interesting old photos. When a boy I used often to do- a fossick amongst old prints at the studio of my uncle, the late D. Ross, who possessed a fair number of old prints. I remember he used to have on the walls of his studio a large photo of the tender engine, built I think at the Phoenix Foundry, Balarat, used on Davies’ wooden railway. On the footplate, one well known figure, that of Dick Powell, afterwards, if I remember aright, mine host of the Prince of Wales Hotel, Dee street. Not very long since I asked Mr C. S. Ross if he had this old photo as I would very much like a copy, but he said he was afraid it was too dilapidated to get a reprint from. I cannot help smiling as I read the account of the trial trip of the little Lady Barkly on Invercargill jetty republished from Invercargill Times of August 11, 1863. To think of anything approaching 50 miles an hour on wooden rails on an erection like the old jetty by such a midget of an engine as the Barkly whose driving wheels were at the outside two feet in diameter and guiding wheels much less, leads one to think the reporters must have been sharing in the jollity of the occasion. If the 50 were 15, I would consider it a big speed for her. She lay for months after the line was unfit to use locomotives on, alongside of where we lived, and we boys used to amuse ourselves examining every part of her mechanism and construction, and pulling all her levers as mimic drivers. She was used for a time to drive flax dressing machinery by the late Captain Thomson at his residence and ship building yard on the foreshore south of the jetty and later drove a sawmill called after her beyond Winton. Captain Thomson lost his life in the wreck of the Ly-ee-moon, at Green Cape on the Australian East Coast. Besides the Lady Barkly there was in use on the wooden railway the before mentioned tender engine built in Ballarat. She was a fine machine of considerable size and power even as compared with present day locomotives, and w’as used chiefly for the heavier traffic, excursions, ballasting, etc. Then a stationary engine was transformed into a locomotive at the railway workshops by the late Robert Hargreaves and his staff. Set on low wheels, the flywheels on the crank shafts on top of the boiler were connected therewith by long rods. This machine had a habit of not infrequently breaking down, and on various occasions we boys would give Mr Crawford, father of Mr James Crawford, of Half Moon Bay, who was yard man for the rolling stock, a hand in filling the boiler and raising steam on the Ballarat engine to go up the line and fetch back the broken down home-made machine. This Ballarat-made engine was I think afterwards used as a sawmill engine by the late Charles Tulloch at Makarewa, and it was not so many years ago since her boiler used to be visible by travellers on the Winton line rusting out on the scene of the old mill, even after all the bush had disappeared. Another and still larger engine of a like design, was for years lying on the Invercargill jetty just at the entrance to the jetty shed, minus its smaller fittings. Probably the failure of the wooden railway rendered its fitting up unnecessary. Later it was used as a motor power for the late Jabez Hay’s flour mill, and a belt therefrom drove the machine used by the late David Strang in his early coffee factory. I think this is the engine, minus its fittings, shown in your supplement of December 10 being drawn by the team of bullocks from the jetty.

The steam plough engines used at Morton Mains were of quite a different class. They were similar to ordinary traction engines of to-day in their general features—cylinders on top of boiler and very large and broad travelling wheels. There were a number of these fitted and put together close to the Invercargill railway station, and many an hour we spent watching the engineers at work on them, and so were familiar with almost their every detail. On an occasion when the agricultural show was held in the grounds known as the Union Bank paddock opposite to where the Corporation offices and Town Hall now stand, two or more of these steam plough engines perambulated Tay street on their own steam jwwer, and under direction of Mr George Lawrie, throughout the. afternoon, causing great interest to onlookers. They were large and powerful machines. The account of the opening of' the wooden railway to Makarewa makes interesting reading, but my recollection of the occasion does not quite coincide with the account given. I was one of the school boys who went up in the train drawn by the Lady Barkly early in the day, when the weather was beautifully fine, and we returned to town fairly early in the afternoon. The grown ups were to follow later in a train drawn by the Ballarat-built tender engine. Amongst these were my parents. This train got to the Waikiwi bush, almost to Grassmere when the rain came on, and we boys knowing by observation how rain affected the rails, were in no way surprised to notice that the train was stuck up and in trouble, and as two, or two and a half miles on BxB inch rails, well ballasted, presented no great impediment, we set off to the “stick-up.’ As we got near the Waihopai bridge we meet numerous excursionists with umbrellas and coats and when we reached the refractory train, to which many of the excursionists still clung in hopes of reaching town in some measure of comfort, we found crowbars in evidence, pinching engine wheels, the rails covered with sand and grit to give “bite” but to no purpose. The wheels spun round, but without any gripping power or movement of the train, and eventually it had to be abandoned, and the track made use of for the walk to town. With good bridges over the Waihopai and Saltwater Creek at Avenal, and substantial BxB rails and well ballasted with gravel track and heavy sleepers, I cannot imagine anyone, unless possibly the officials, having to camp out,, and think some one must be romancing. Anyhow, all our family walked home, possibly in some discomfort in the rain but without risk. It certainly was a day of jollification to be remembered and from the beer casks mounted on stands any amount of liquid refreshment was procurable, free, gratis and for nothing. In dry weather quite good speed could be made on the wooden rails. The vehicle’s wheels were flat tired and of fair width, with guiding wheels set at an angle for the edge of the rails. When the edges became worn away by usage or rotted with the weather the vehicles frequently became derailed, and caused much trouble especially in shunting, that eventually the line was merely used for horse haulage, until the line to Winton in iron eventually superseded it. No one knew the uncertainties of such travelling better than the late Grannie Steel,

of West Plains, who, when overtaken by a train when tramping to town with her butter and eggs and offered a lift said: “No thank you. I’m in a hurry to-day.” Though this is a hackneyed and supposed mythical story, I have heard it from the old lady’s own lips. In the issue of December 9 in a view showing the old Fire Brigade Station on the right hand page, the note says: “The beginning of,Tay street. The Fire Brigade is on the right; the tall post above the figures is on the Bank of New Zealand corner." It is on the corner of Nith and Tay street in front of the old Royal Hotel, now Royds Bros, and Kirk’s comer, a block east of the Bank of New Zealand. The small building to the left of the hotel was afterwards Craig and Co’s printing office. The lamp post shows also in the issue of December 10 in front of the improved Royal Hotel view. Re view of old Immigration Barracks formerly the home of the late Mr Lillicrao, I met a son of Mr Lillicrap’s in Auckland this week, proprietor of a music warehouse in Queen street. In the issu4 of December 10 appears a view of the old Waihopai Hotel, Long Bush, at one time occupied by the late John Mitchell, afterwards a stock and station agent and auctioneer in Invercargill. It is a strange co-incidence that last week when passing St. Leon’s circus tent here, I remarked to my wife that I remember as a youth seeing posters of St. Leon’s circus pasted on the fence of the Waihopai Hotel at Long Bush, Southland. The company here last week claimed to have been catering to the public in the circus line for over 50 years.