SteamRail Wanganui is a

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

preservation society based in

Wanganui Whanganui, also spelt Wanganui, is a list of cities in New Zealand, city in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand. The city is located on the west coast of the North Island at the mouth of the Whanganui River, New Zealand's longest nav ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. It owns heritage railway locomotives,

rolling stock The term rolling stock in the rail transport industry refers to railway vehicles, including both powered and unpowered vehicles: for example, locomotives, Railroad car#Freight cars, freight and Passenger railroad car, passenger cars (or coaches) ...

, and structures in the Wanganui area. It also operates occasional excursions in conjunction with other societies and provides a base for excursions passing through Wanganui to stop and visit while replenishing supplies. Its goal is to establish a railway precinct in Wanganui as a historical and tourist attraction.

Society history and infrastructure

The society was formed around 1990 with the express goal of restoring the old

turntable A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration waveforms are recorded as corresponding phys ...

, which was then facing scrap. SteamRail Wanganui successfully saved the turntable and restored it over a period of three years with the assistance of

Steam Incorporated Steam Incorporated, often abbreviated to Steam Inc., is a railway heritage and preservation society based at the Paekākāriki railway station, Paekākāriki at the southern end of the Kāpiti Coast, approximately 50 minutes north of Wellington o ...

. The first locomotive to use it was Steam Incorporated's K^A 945 and the turntable now sees daily use by regular trains, as well as occasional use by visiting excursions. The society subsequently acquired other railway infrastructure in the Wanganui area, including the Aramoho

signal box A signal is both the process and the result of transmission of data over some media accomplished by embedding some variation. Signals are important in multiple subject fields including signal processing, information theory and biology. In ...

, East Town Workshops staff buildings, and a shed converted into a storage depot for the society's rolling stock.

Locomotives

The organisation possesses three small

diesel locomotive A diesel locomotive is a type of railway locomotive in which the prime mover (locomotive), power source is a diesel engine. Several types of diesel locomotives have been developed, differing mainly in the means by which mechanical power is con ...

s, all of which were used in private industrial service rather than by the

New Zealand Railways Department The New Zealand Railways Department, NZR or NZGR (New Zealand Government Railways) and often known as the "Railways", was a government department charged with owning and maintaining Rail transport in New Zealand, New Zealand's railway infrastruc ...

. They are: * Drewry , built 1950, 102 hp motor. *

Price A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation expected, required, or given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, especially when the product is a service rather than a ph ...

, built 1944, 87 hp motor *

, built 1964, 196 hp motor

Rolling stock

The society has a small collection of general freight wagons and "way and works" rolling stock, including fuel tankers, box wagons, and a railway crane. In addition, they possess a passenger wagon rescued from a farmer's field outside Wanganui. It is one of only three built at the Petone Workshops in 1896 and is believed to be the only one of its type to still exist. It is currently partly restored with the goal of returning it to its original condition.SteamRail Wanganui - Passenger Car
/ref>

References

External links

SteamRail Wanganui - deleted
{{NZR Heritage Rail transport in Manawatū-Whanganui Rail transport preservation in New Zealand Transport organisations based in New Zealand