Gidday All, May be irrelevant on this forum but my favourite “bookmarked” video on New Zealand Railway Steam.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm7k19-d3fg
Enjoy,
Cheers, the Bear.
Love that steam. Makes me feel old, this video is only 20 years removed from steams last regular use and here we are going on 30 years since the video was taken. I loved the opening where the steamers are passing up the road cars.
Richard
Gidday Richard, glad you enjoyed it.
The last scheduled steam hauled service was in October 1971 when I was 13. Our local country store was next to the South Island Main Trunk and a meeting place for farmers and their wives getting their groceries on Friday night, this was pre-supermarkets. The highlight of the evening for us kids, apart from a ha’penny of sweets if we had been good and done our chores through the week, was the “Limited” thundering through the village, the "god like"driver often giving us a casual wave and a toot on the whistle, we not realizing at the time that it was actually a warning blast for the level crossing.
It was much later that I read in a railfan magazine that our section of the railway was a good spot for making up lost time on the run into Invercargill, and that speeds in excess of 70 mph had been timed and recorded, not too bad for 3’ 6" gauge.
Cheers, the Bear.
Great to see it. I remember standing in the cab at the Museum of Transport in Auckland when I visited in 1990. Splendid piece of equipment.
Dennis