Vintage steam meets vintage cars

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 9, Issue 424, 18 February 1992, Page 1

Vintage steam meets vintage cars

Once again stars of the steam age drew hundreds of fans from the Waimarino last Thursday. Ka 945, an oil burner engine with 12 carriages and 300 passengers. For this latest event the locomotive arrived at Horopito at noon and passengers disembarked to walk to Horopito Motors to view the vintage cars. Some passengers decided to stay while others travelled on to Taumarunui to the turn table there. The two engines (Ka945 and Jal234) hooked up and travelled back as one train, picking up the balance of passengers and, after a 25-minute stop at Ohakune for water, retumed to Palmerston North by about 1am the next morning. Passengers on Ka945 were mainly Vintage Car enthusiasts who were keen to view the Horopito Vintage car parts 'supermarket'. Ka 945 was built at the Hutt workshops in 1939 and was used to haul both passengers and freight on the North Is- | land Main Trunk Line and secondary lines for 28 years. In 1967 this

engine was rescued from scrapping by Sir Len Southward, who subsequently donated the locomotive to Steam Incorporated of Paekakariki. Society members set about overhauling and restoring this fine specimen of

early history. The deadline was set for 1985 75 th anniversary trips on the Main Trunk Line and since then the locomotive has become familiar in this area on numerous North Island excursions. The second locomo-

tive, Jal234 was built in Scotland by the North British Locomotive Company in 1939 and worked 30 years in both the North and South Islands. All of the J class locomotives were fitted, when built, with stream-

line sheathing. It featured a conical nose and skyline casing on the top of the boiler. This stream-lining was later removed to simplify maintenance. Jal234 is typical of the class as they looked in the Turn page 2

Steam From page 1 1960's Acquired by Steam Incorporated in 1971, the locomotive has seen some active years of service for the society before being overhauled during 1991. 4 Passengers said they thoroughly enjoyed the trip. One passenger was heard to remark that this trip was equal to any train trip in the world. Wendy Bailey, excursion organiser said that five months ago it became obvious that because of the interest shown, two trains would be required to carry the 850 passengers.