Book review time

A couple of weeks ago A PDF copy of a new book was shared with me. Its a surprise to find a railway in this country that I haven't heard of. In the late 1920's the Auckland city council built a dam in the upper Huia valley to supply water to the growing city. 

As part of this a tramway was built to transport building materials from The Manuka harbour 6 km up the Huia river to the dam site. The tramway then ran a futher 2.5km above the dam site to a quarry.

Unlike a typical bush tramway, the line was built to a much higher standard as it carried quite substantial loads of cement, sand and rock. Several bridges were required as well as a couple of tunnels.

The line from the landing on the Manakau moved sand and cement brought in by barge with a typical days load being 120 tons in 4 trains. This was carried in bogie wagons built on log bogies. 

Several locos were used on the line. A Price Cb was purchased new in 1927, and a Gibbons and Harris 0-4-0 and a 9 ton Barcley 0-4-0 also worked on the project. The Cb was used to move trains from the landing to the dam site and the other 2 on the quarry line. When the dam was completed in 1929 the Quarry line was lifted and the line down to the Manakau was left for access to the dam untill it was lifted in 1959.

So, thats a rough summary of the history, whats in the book. Well, for once there's much more, and quite honestly its christmas for the modeler. A map of the line with all the interesting spots covered. Track plans for the landing, dam and quarry, along with a detailed discussion of how they were operated. There are plans for the locos (or close to) that ran on the line as well as a plan for the main type of wagon used. there are also plans (and detailed information) for the major bridges, tunnels and other locations of interest (including where the line ran across a rock shelf which had to be blasted).

Admittedly the book is writen from a historians view with detailed explanations about the difference between NZR and bush trams which for the average railway modeler are a bit long winded. Thats not why we are here. The rest of the book is absolutely brilliant and my hats off to Peter Hopcroft for writing a book which should be a blueprint for historical railway writing in this country.

Hiua Dam Railway.

Book Review Time

Among other things I've been reading, I picked up a copy of "A West Coast Engineman" by Ian Tibbles..

Ian was a fireman on the west coast from 1962 to the end of steam in mid 1969. In this time he worked on every line on the coast. There's a good collection of photo's in the 250 odd pages. There's also the standard collection of character stories which quite honestly don't do much for me (now, a good chemical accident story, that's riveting reading). What is really usful is the descriptions of the various workings, as well as the shunting methods used at Westport and Greymouth. So an excellent resource for those with an interest.

Completed

At the weekend I finally secured  the final item in a collection that I have been building for a while.
Its taken many evenings checking Trademe, buying small collections just for 1 or 2 items, and passing the unwanted on to others.

So, what have I got?
A complete collection of Railfan magazines. 20 years of railway history, both old and modern.

38cm high, which does lead to a bit of a storage problem, if one requires quick access to any article, for which I will have to develop an index of some sort. No doubt the editors will now release series collection books (which i think would be a great idea. The collected branch line articles would be brilliant).

Can anyone point me at a set of plain magazine binders?

Book review; 1950's steam in colour

I was lucky enough to get hold of a copy of this book at much less than cost price off Trademe a couple of weeks ago. Now Derek Cross needs no introduction (fortunately) as a photographer of a railway system long since gone, so I was very interested to see just what had shaken out of his collection.
The answer is, I'm not quite sure. Given that colour photography was in ifs infancy in the 1950's and you couldn't just change film etc, the photos themselves show just how good he was as a photographer by getting the best out of a very difficult medium. I think that the down side might be in the actual selection of pictures. Some are very nice and useful, but others are just odd (A picture of the band playing on the station platform at Glenhope during the 'last' train on the Nelson section? The only use would be to reveal how truly poor men's fashion and haircuts were in those long gone days. And I'm sure that its Danial Craig smoking a cigarette wearing a trench coat on the platform beside them). There is also two of a branch line train on the causeway at Riverton. The same train at virtually the same shot, and both 3/4 views. Was there nothing else left in the box?

Overall I'll have to give this a 'Not quite there' quite honestly. There are not quite enough useful shots to give a man modeling ideas. If you can pick it up cheap, all well and good but there are other Steam era books I would buy before this one.

Book Review: Journey to the Pass

Am_Fet writes:

I mentioned this book back in my post about the mysterious "Raven Tea" wagon and lalover asked for more info. SO, here is the full un-expurgated review:

Journey to the Pass (Memories of the Midland Line)
Stephen and Matthew Wright
(Hilton Press, A4 card cover, 211 pages)

Normally I can take or leave social history, but I was immediately taken by this book when I first encountered TCO Fred Carter reading it one day while not much was moving on the CHCH-PCTN line. Sure, I was drawn to the photos (mostly B&W with a few in colour) but found that once I finally finangled it off Fred I was really taken with the stories contained within.

Father and Son team Stephen and Matthew Wright started the project as an oral history exercise with no intention of it becoming a book, but luckily they chose to publish. It is made up of interviews with eight people who had links with the "Midland Line" (now termed the coal route) and each person tells there own story with their own voice...It does suggest very little editing happened between drafts and final manuscript. Those interviewed range from railways staff from different areas (driver, guard, station master, etc) through to those who used the line (a gangers son, a girl who rode the school trains). Chapters on the history of the line and a photo gallery close out the contents.


As youd somehow expect, the two biggest chapters revolve around the old refreshment rooms (Doreen Dudley and Bid Elson) and engine driver Jim Dillon. All three have enthralling stories to tell about how it used to be living in Springfield.

The photos range from well known ones (John Cooke and John Brouwer feature) through to those not seen before from private collections. Reproduction is good with the photos very clear. My favourite has to be the shot of several workmen in the cage used to transport them via cable from one side of Staircase gully to the other...dont look down!


Those whose interests dont progress much further than locomotives and wagons will probably think nothing of avoiding this book, but theyd be doing themselves a great disservice to do so. As a modeller (loosly), I found enough operational detail in the book to keep me entertained and I must admit I polished it off in one sitting.

Final verdict? Highly recommended. At the very least search it out through the library system for a look.

Book corner

Today I made a rare trip to the library (I was on my way to Resenes to get some paint and just happened to be passing). The book I did find that I've wanted to read for a long time is 'When Nelson had a railway'. Its a very good collection of photo's of the local railway throughout its history. What I found particularly interesting was the documentation of the removal of the entire line. I've only seen anything similar with the removal of the Otago central line.

Being involved with the local group (some of whom model the Nelson line) its interesting to look at why you would model the line. Its even come up that an attempt should be made to build a club layout modeling some of the scenes. The major problem I have is that while the line had 4 Wf's, only one was ever in steam at once, and the only time there were really 2 running was during the lifting of the line. So you can have a large layout, but only 1 engine in steam at any one time, which doesn't really appeal to me.

Don't worry folks, tomorrow night its back to Trackgang reviews, with a look at the 6' coach bogies.

Another new book

This weeks purchase was the 'Spirit of steam' by Roy Sinclair on trademe. While the text is a bit hokey at times ( Its a collection of steal shapes guys, get over it. Then again, all we are is a random assortment of carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, hydrogen and sulphur with a few trace metals thrown in).

What it is good for is the detail shots of the locos (mostly K and J class) and also some of the smaller details that often are not noticed.


On the picture above note the bent rails protecting the water standpipe, obviously put there through long experience. Ditto the collection of pipework on a Ka boiler that needs to be modeled so as not to offend the purists. Also note that the Ka had a cross compound pump in place of the 2 Westinghouse pumps up the front. (I know that 957 and 962 were so treated, and had large air cylinders at the front in the pumps place. hows that for geeky?)
(Also note how easy it is to spot pictures of the Paikakariki loco depot, just due to the slope of the hillside behind it.)