Have made a number of alterations to the rolling stock over the past year. The brake leverage on Little Toot's bogie has been adjusted such that the bogie brake blocks no longer wear out 3 times faster than the driving wheel brake blocks. Ted finished fabricating a 5 chime whistle and tested it on the Little Toot but was to loud for the neighbours and didn't sound quite right. A train pipe connection was added to A82 and little Toot prior to Christmas. This allows the brakes on the first bogie to be applied with straight air, reducing the amount of braking effort required on the Loco. Will require an automatic air brake if an extra carriage is to be added to the train. The
Grand Scales Quarterly
is currently doing a series of articles on a simple automatic air brake suitable for our size train which Ted is keen to get started on. Ted is well under way in building a new head in the style of a 10" Westinghouse Pump. In July Little Toot had her cylinders honed, new piston rings fitted and some repairs to her motion. Another air reservoir has recently been mounted under the left hand water tank doubling the capacity of the main reservoir. Has now clocked up 19,800km going round the 350m circuit. The carriages A81 & A82 have had some
side panels replaced and the Caboose C43 has had solid cast iron wheels fitted. The Railcar RM1 has had a 100kg of weight added and a sandbox fitted. Have started to build two more carriage bogies, made the wheel sets and started machining the axle boxes. Have found the axle boxes covers to be a bit too hard, will have to take them back to the foundry to be annealed or re-cast.
Another Turnout has been built and install to come off the Station loop and run to the turntable and Roundhouse. The next section to re-rail was the track at the main station. This required some hard rocky ground to be dug out and there was no way we could do this by hand within a week . So in February Ted decided to splash out on a 2nd hand Bobcat . This was small enough to get up the footpath from the station to the Restaurant and possibly small enough to go in the tunnel. In mid March had 3 new track sets ready to put in and thought we had a break from midweek charters. Pulled out the station track sets and dug out the track bed with the Bobcat. Had some difficulty getting an even surface and broke a water pipe from the Station spouting to the Roundhouse Water Tank, which wasn't buried deep enough. Put down a blanket of sand then dropped the new track sets in position and trimmed the transition track set to reconnect. Spread several wagons of ballast loaded from the new Way & Works siding and tamped sufficiently level and firm to allow the train through for a Thursday morning charter. Fixed the broken water pipe and finished ballasting and tamping ready for the weekends running. The old track sets were later used for the loop. The next job for the Bobcat was to move some of the spoils from the last years Restaurants earthworks which was blocking a previously open drain. Was not long into this job when we found the perils of 2nd hand machinery. Had a major oil leak which we eventually found after removing the engine to be a couple of steel hydraulic pipes running under the engine. Was late May before we finished
clearing the drain. The next task was putting in a decent depth of ballast and improving the line on the curve from the Station to the first bridge. Once some panels had been replaced and side shoots added to the ballast wagon proceeded with upgrading the curve in mid June. The train now glides round this curve with the improved line. Over the past year have also re-greased a dozen or so joints with the Malleus GL95.
In January put in a new shed by the Way & Works siding for the Way & Works equipment. Moved the carpenter's bench from the Roundhouse into the shed. Also moved most of the old kitchen benches out of the Roundhouse for storage in the Manurewa shed. Created a little bit of clear space in the Roundhouse. Have started making up rail stands for the first bay of track into the Roundhouse.
Have produced an A5 size handout with a map of the property on one side and a brief history of the railway on the other to give out to customers. On Christmas Day Ted dragged out another hardwood beam to widen the main bush walk bridge (Chelsa Bridge). On Boxing Day did a trial with a Guard on the Train and stopping at the Budgie Paddock platform, seemed to work OK but Ted didn't like stopping on the slight downgrade.
The wheel press is complete but still requires an adapter or two to be made up.
Our wepage (www.rail.co.nz) is up and running. Our student Stationmaster Kris is a bit of a computer guru and set-up the layout and initial details and this is being hosted by xtra. Have become sufficiently familiar with the html language to be able to add additional pages and update details, most recently adding the Restaurant & Menu details. The next task is to add this newsletter. Note; To other NZ Operator's if you have an E Mail address you can list your details on the Tourism Boards PureNZ web site at no charge. Go to
www.purenz.com
then to the bottom of the page and click on "About This Site" and follow the link for operator's to register their details. I see there is still only a few of the railway groups listed on the PureNZ site at this stage. Had some heavy downpours end of June, washing away one of the bush walk bridges and flooding a section of track behind the Restaurant. Having difficulty getting cylinder oil again were getting 20 litre containers of Mobil Extra Hecla super cylinder oil ISO VG680 were told Mobil was no longer making this grade of oil but they did have two 208 litre drums of this left in stock.
We purchased one of these which should last us 5 years but what happens after that? Have been given a Kune Kune pig to look after called Pumpkin. The Budgie cage has been extended with two more bays, one for the Ring neck dove's the other for the Rosella's. Holly has been giving individual donkey rides occasionally over the School holidays. The Restaurant has purchased 5 flash little pedal cars as an extra attraction charging $2 for 10 minutes use.
We have finally put up a new Open / Closed sign, which allows for the Restaurant & Railway. Were given permission for this some time ago but had the stipulation that it would be reviewed in 12 months time with the possibility of being required to make the Main Logo sign and Open / Closed sign into one sign. This put us off doing anything until being assured by the Bylaws Officer this was very unlikely. The Business Whangaparaoa Inc. Day Trips did not eventuate but they have been pushing for a TS5 sign on the main road indicating there are Tourist Attractions & Facilities on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula. Had some success with Transit but Council Bureaucrat's have basically put the kibosh on this putting the symbols only up on a sign 2km down Whangaparaoa Road. Perhaps Superman could see them as he drives along the main road. Have written a letter to Hon. Mark Burton the Minister of Tourism requesting a dispensation for Railway Attractions from Transits requirement for business to operate 6 days a week before considering any form of signage. Also for a Policy / Guidelines for recognising significant tourist attractions for local councils to use. Our other problem is that according to Council we are not in Stanmore Bay but 2km before Stanmore Bay. Seems I made an error in putting Stanmore Bay on our brochure as recommended by our Marketing consultant. I was always under the impression that the Stanmore Bay region was from just before the Viponds road intersection to a bit past the Pacific Plaza Shopping Complex. I am not sure what to do about this, reprint our brochure with Whangaparaoa instead of Stanmore Bay or petition Council to recognise the above region as Stanmore Bay. Anyway if you are heading our way when you see the sign "Stanmore Bay 4km" we are actually 2km beyond that sign.
Everyone was a bit crook over the last month or three, Ted's been diagnosed with secondary bone cancer, my knee started playing up, Julie had Eeyore the Donkey fall on her and Anita stabbed herself with the donkey cart. Ted's been going to the Rife Centre a naturopathic clinic and been put on a special blood type diet and having magnetic treatments etc. and seems to be doing OK. Has put in a big section of concrete round the entrance to Kitchen this month. I was working on the curve to first bridge trying to get rid of some of the vertical curves in the rails using the new wheel press. Popped up to the office to make a phone call then spun round on swivel chair, went to get up and knee just went. Eventually managed to hobble back down to the track and finish bolting the rail in place. Saw a Doctor next morning who referred me back to the Knee surgeon but he thought it would probably come right. The pain had subsided but could not fully straighten. The following weekend was rostered to do maintenance at GVR but was caught in the middle of a nine car nose to tail at Manurewa writing the car off. Felt no worse straight afterwards but a few days later ribs were sore. Saw the duty Doctor at Coast Care before my appointment with the Knee Surgeon. Found I had a fracture of the tip of the 11th RH rib. The Knee surgeon found the bit of bone held in place by a couple of screws put in 6 years back, had broken up, blocking the knee movement. Was advised to stop walking on it and get some crutches. Arrangements were made to get ACC approval for surgery to remove the screws and broken bits of bone ASAP. After the surgery had an MRI scan which found more problems possible requiring a bit of donor bone to be inserted. Have been going to the Rife Centre with Ted getting some special treatments and supplements to promote bone growth and going to the Waiwera Gym to build the muscles back up. The knee seems to be fine at the moment so will not need more surgery in the near future. Anita was doing the donkey's hooves, had done Eeyore's and put him back in the paddock. Then while doing Cinders hooves, Eeyore decided to jump the fence but caught his hind leg in the top wire. Anita & Julie were trying to get him down when the wire broke and Eeyore fell on top of Julie. Julie had to use my crutches for a while getting slightly crushed & bruised and Eeyore was a bit worse for wear with a few scratches and a black eye. Then not to long after that Anita was running with the donkey cart trying to bounce it over an open drain. One side caught swinging the shaft round and hitting her hard in the chest breaking some of the cartilage joining the ribs. Required a dose of anti-inflammatory drugs to reduce the pain. Hopefully we are all now back in one piece and ready for a busy Christmas season.