Canterbury Railway Society Inc

News

Steam Locomotives Heading in Different Directions

28/8/2001

Two of the Ferrymead Railway's steam locomotive fleet will be leaving the Park later this month for operation on other railway museum lines in the Canterbury region.

Price CB 113, a restored bush locomotive, is to visit McLeans Island Steam Museum, in north-west Christchurch, for a steam festival on the 1st and 2nd of September. It recently had some minor work done in conjunction with its annual survey and was trucked from the Park to the McLeans Island site on the 23rd of August.

WD 357, our 100 year old Baldwin 2-6-4T, will be railed north to Waipara with the Diesel Traction Group's DE 1429 and two Ferrymead Railway carriages at the end of August, for the Waipara Vintage Festival. It is presently in the workshop having some maintenance completed in time for its duties on the Weka Pass line between Waipara and Waikari. The Festival operates on the 15th and 16th of September.

On 24th August, the boiler of F 13 was trucked from our site to Lyttelton Engineering where repair work is to be carried out. The work will be funded by a grant we received last year when the locomotive was stripped down for its 10 year survey.

We have also been informed that WAB 794, which was formerly stored on the Ferrymead Railway, and moved to Feilding for restoration in 1997, had its first fire lit since restoration, on 25th August. Only partial pressure was raised in the boiler. More tests and raising of full steam pressure are expected in the near future. There is still another couple of months work needed to get it up to running order.

Off To North Canterbury - Raising Engineering Standards On DE 1429