NZ_pics

A Real Treat

After the visit to MainLine Steams toy box we went back the following weekend to do some volunteering. Annie and I were invited to travel on the Midlander Steam Special over the Southern Alps the first weekend of our holiday.

This was a two day tour from Christchurch to Greymouth and back.

The engine for this was Jb class 4-8-2 #1236. Mainline Steam don't just have the toy box at Plimmerton. They also have a shed at Christchurch and at Parnell in Auckland.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to travel in the footplate for the first three hours or so as you can see on the title page of the website.

The picture on the left is the point where the train turns for the mountains that you can see on the right.

I was still on the engine as we climbed into the mountains and crossed Broken River Viaduct for the first photo run by. We chucked everyone off, backed and then gave it some welly. Annie took this picture of the run by.

Here we are getting right up into the mountains. This view has the train backing over the Bealey River ready for another run by.

Next stop was Arthurs Pass. This is short of the summit but from here the line is in a tunnel.

We stopped here to pick up three diesels to take us through the tunnel

Here's another photo from one of the run bys whilst I was still on the engine.

The picture in the right is our train at Moana alongside Lake Brunner on the way towards Greymouth on the Saturday

In Greymouth we found this disused signal box which could be anywhere in the UK.

For the final shot of this section I'll put this one in of the engine climbing Cass Bank on the way back on Sunday

For more info on mainline steam

After that extravaganza we collected a rental car and toured the south island ending up in Dunedin

Whilst in Christchurch we had dinner on the dining tram.

This is a tram equipped for dining, complete with kitchen, which circles the centre of town whilst a four course meal is served. It was an excellent evening.

From Christchurch we headed of back over to the west coast in the rented car.

The pictures above do the weeks tour a complete dis-service but show just a few of the sights we saw whilst driving. The engine is at Shantytown, a sort of Beamish type museum. The moody sunset was taken as we drove to an overnight stop in Wanaka. The picture on the right is lake Dunstan, the reservoir created by the Clyde dam. This view is from the restored town in Cromwell.

The end destination of this first week trip was Dunedin.

Here we went to see the double Fairlie Josephine in the early settlers museum, the fantastic station building and the Albatross centre.

The reason I wanted to end up in Dunedin was to ride the Taieri Gorge railway.

The pictures below are from the trip on the railway. The loco's sanders weren't working so they were hand sanding to get away from a stop at Hindon

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