In the very early days of railway construction in New Zealand there was a deliberate policy of using small locomotives and lightly laid rail to keep costs down. This policy was proved to be a mistake, but in remedying the situation many of the former small government railways locomotives were sold on to buramway and industrial use, which is one of the reasons why the NZ logging railways were so distinctive as compared with the rest of the world.
Also in the early days local engineering works would sometimes win government tenders to supply a locomotive or locomotives. One of these small works was Mills Brothers (and I can’t give much more detail at the moment because I’m doing all this from memory).
Mills Brothers built 3 small light locos of what became to be known as Class ‘A’ (Mills) and all of these eventually found their way onto buramways .
This is ‘Skunk’ in as built condition, - I have no idea why this particular loco was given that name.
And this is one of the Class ‘A’ (Mills) locos after it had been working for some years on a timber tramway.
I do actually own a photocopied set of drawings taken from the original general arrangement drawings and it’s fairly plain that much was figured out on the job because the drawings are wee bit light on certain details. Some years ago I had a go at building a live steam Mills ‘A’ to 1/2 inch scale, but my marriage broke up around the same time and I’m afraid I haven’t a clue what happened to it because once the dust settled I couldn’t find a trace of it. So be warned, marriage and trains don’t always mix and it may be better to sometimes to ditch the other half before you commit yourself to a serious project.
What is strange about building NZ logging lokeys???
Out of 10 locos all but 2 of my locomotives has an NZ prototype.
double Fairlie type E
Washington Iron Works ‘shay’ -yes I know the ship carrying it sank, but that was a plus point as far as I was concerned!!
Price type Ar meyer
Price 16 wheeler
Johnson 8 wheeler
Dispatch 12 wheeler
Climax ‘a’ clone
Davidson 12 wheeler (under construction)
Kinda reminds me of one of my favorite engines, Bear Harbor #1, Gypsy.
Pick up the latest Finescale Railroader “mining and logging annual” there are some incredible pics of a model of this engine and another of my favorites, Elk River #1, the Falk, which I can never find a good picture of…
LocoAnnie and vsmith Very cool pictures! LocoAnnie Do any of these still exist either in service or museums??? vsmith Where was this picture taken? Does this engine still exist???
The Mills ‘A’ had single flanged wheels Jack , - or at least my general arrangement drawing shows single flanged wheels. If anything different happened later I’m afraid I don’t know, many NZ bush lokeys ended up a wee bit like grandad’s axe, - 3 heads and 5 handles and it’s still the same axe.
Oh I completely agree Ralph, - I love the NZ bu***ramways. My great grandad worked at Prices’ Engineering in Thames and I have copies of the general arrangement drawings for most of the Price timber tram locos. I was lucky to get these as the originals were drafted out on linen and they are now very fragile indeed. If anybody is desperate for information on any of the Price locos I would be willing to provide a copy of any drawing I have provided my costs are reasonably covered. Got any pictures of your locos by the way? Was the Dispatch loco hard to build? - they had the most appalling geared transmission which was a major weak spot, - which is a shame really because the later models were good looking lokeys.
Um now Mr Underworld is it? - as far as I’m aware all the Mills locos have gone to the big scrap yard in the sky, BUT I will check to make certain. Many old NZ locos ended up being dumped in rivers or else left to become a climbing frame for blackberry, - and just lately some of the preservation societies have been locating their whereabouts and hauling them off for restoration.
I love Bear Harbour #1 by the way Mr VSmith, reminds me a lot of some of the smaller NZ bush lokeys that were fitted out with steam winches
Now there is a Mills ‘A’ that survived to preservation; - ‘Opossum’ is its name and it’s presently in store at the Shantytown museum. http://www.shantytown.co.nz/www/locos.htm
The entry for Opossum is well down the page and apparently poor old Opossum is in a pretty poor state.
Opossum while still alive and working.
Ah, Mr VSmith, I see you’ve chosen a picture of a Price 16 wheeler. These were the absolute Rolls Royces of all the NZ buram lokeys and were very very successful on the often steeply graded lightly laid buramways. I’ve seen one of these modelled in 9mm scale (which is a popular scale for NZ prototype railway models here in NZ) by a very talented young model maker who had managed to make all 8 axles powered by exactly reproducing the whole transmission system to scale (!!!).
I actually have a works drawing for a Price 16 wheeler … (sound of laying down the gauntlet) … that’s if you really do fancy building one.
The Dispatch was actually very easy to build -but it is undergoing severe surgury at the moment. One Dispatch was re-built as a mallett style simple articulated -which blew itself to bits on the boiler trials. It is of course this one that the Dispatch is being re-built into. It did keep the original steam winch.
Vsmith,
If you would like to see how I made mine then consult the sections on ‘How to Build’.
Chaps, here is a Price’s C-16 wheeler built by a couple of friends of mine here in Auz. The model is powered via a drive line like the prototype, all wheels are geared, with a single large motor in the tender.
The scale was altered to 1:20.3, making her a 3ft gauge model, rather than 42".
LocoAnnie Yes…you could call me Mr underworld…but just underworld is fine! [:p] Thanks for the information…now I just have to figure out how to get down there to take some pics myself! I’m a bit of a photo nut.
vsmith Thanks for the information! [:)]
Fletch I really like your friend’s C-16 wheeler…beautiful work! [:)]
Cabbage, thanks for the link to your website. I must comment that you are a very daring modeller, - some of the drive systems you’ve devised are little short of amazing.
I do not consider myself gifted or daring!!! The daring part really belongs to the people who make the originals… As my techniques get better (note I did not say technology) I feel that I can tackle more ambitious projects. BUT, this does not stop me returning to a model and ‘fiddling’ with it for a couple of days.
The current project is proving to be something of a money pit. I have had to give up drilling by eye with my pillar drill and buy a precision compound table. The cost of this one item is more than I normally spend building two locos.
OK -time for personal philosophy…
I build my models out of scrap and junk, not because I am poor, but because I enjoy the process. To me the hunt for the bits and pieces to build my creations from -is 95% of the creative fun.
Let me give you an example. I decided to give a couple of my locos full working valve gear. It functions perfectly and actually would work -it is Hackworth internal vavle gear. It is the only one that I have a working formulae for…
The slides are from boat stantions, the main cylinder block is a cabinet fitting and the slide and conrods are simply shaped lengths of K+N section strip.
Viz::
Here we see the partially complete system stuck to the side of a ‘modified’ Mallet Dispatch (now 8 wheeler).
The completed system on the side of the Meyer
The curious drive system in which the piston drives a large cog to a smaller cog is explained simply. I saw this when I was in Finland, the small cogs drive an epicyclic transfer box to the main axles -thus giving the loco 1,2,3rd gear. It seemed so crazy -but logical that I had to do it.
Don’t argue with a woman Ralph, - your work is wonderfully inspired!
I understand your models a little better too now that you’ve explained your modelling methods. Scrap and junk … it sort of makes your models rolling works of art really.
I love the work you’ve done on the Dispatch loco, miles better than the original Dispatch design which as we both know was utterly frightful.
Getting a bit late for reply and feed into a post I know but I am desperate for info regarding the price 16 wheeler. Has anyone still got any GA drawings that I could access ?
I like to scratch build models …early/steam New Zealand in S scale and this really appeals and am thinking this presents a nice challenge.
A few years ago I built a Price 16 wheeler here’s a link to the site but most of the pics have been lost over the years but the links to the sites I referenced should still be useful.
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Was the Dispatch loco hard to build? - they had the most appalling geared transmission which was a major weak spot, - which is a shame really because the later models were good looking lokeys.
