Lumsden locomotive emerges from mud after 93 years

[johnthefireman]

One for David!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8pLzhj ... e=youtu.be

A relic of New Zealand's rail past has emerged from the mud 93 years after being dumped in a Southland River. The Lumsden Heritage Trust has been campaigning to retrieve the two 1885 V class steam locomotives from the Oreti River for about half a decade. They're thought to be one of the last of their kind in the world...

[NaugyRR]

Makes you wonder how many places in the world, including the oceans, where old railroad equipment has been buried and lost.

I think in Long Island or Queens there's a rumor of an old buried steam locomotive under the city streets.

[David Benton]

Thanks John , saw this in the local media , but have been very busy.
It was common practice to dump old locomotives beside riverbanks to try to reduce erosion of the banks. NZ has alot of fast running rivers , roads and rail often follow a river through gorges and valleys to get through the hilly terrain. In later years they filled open top wagons with gravel, sealed them with concrete , and stacked them on top of each other to achieve the same thing.
The scrap steel was virtually worthless, until NZ opened its first steel mill in the 1960's.
I have to admit , when I first saw this , I thought, oh no, not another project competing for scarce funding for preservation. There's no shortage of projects stalled for lack of funds and manpower, including the kingston flyer , just up the road from this.

Here's a couple of videos of my own erosion control attempts/ experiences.
https://youtu.be/ljH9GXFnKaU
https://www.facebook.com/davicrockett/v ... 691130018/

[johnthefireman]

I'm currently spending a lot of time shoring up my 1.6 km-long access track against erosion by the current heavy rains. We don't have any machinery, just a couple of workers doing it all by hand, digging and clearing ditches and filling some of the worst bits with rocks and stones to give the wheels purchase. In some places we've dug right down through the black cotton soil (black turf in South Africa - not sure what the international term for it would be) between half a metre and a metre until we reach rock or murram, and then piling stones from there.

Our "main" dirt road, which takes us 25 km to the nearest tarmac road, is also pretty bad at the moment. Only yesterday I had to use my Land Rover to pull out a Toyota Land Cruiser that was completely bogged down, the second in two weeks. The old 75 series Land Cruiser is a good car, and I drove one for years in Sudan, but the modern fancy ones are useless compared to a Land Rover Defender. Mind you I think the problem is also that many city drivers have no idea how to use 4WD nor how to drive off road, so they get stuck and have to wait for blokes like me to come past and tow them!

[David Benton]

The new Landcruisers,etc, are called "Remuera Tractors" here, after the posh Auckland suburb where they tend to be status symbols. Perish the thought of taking them off the tarmac. Good for towing the boat or caravan though .
Farmers and loggers etc , all use the Hilux double cab utes for work nowadays, though some still keep the older landcruisers etc going . Some clocking over a million k's . rust was the problem in NZ's marine climate, with a complete fibreglass body kit been made available locally to replace rusty bodies.
Kiwirail use Hilux style utes , some fitted with hi rail gear .
Ive got a late 90's landrover freelander , but have to say I would prefer an older style selectable 4wd, or even manual select hubs.

[johnthefireman]

Yes, in UK the fancy ones are called "Chelsea Tractors" after the upmarket district of London. Good for taking the kids half a mile to school, apparently. I'm told you can buy spray-on mud to make it look as if you've been off road at the weekend, although that may be an apocryphal tale.

I've driven a Hilux double-cabin 4WD ute in Sudan. Quite capable, although I find the ratio on second gear to be a little too high. My 75 series Land Cruiser in Sudan was a ute, and I had a station wagon version of the 75 here in Kenya. Many years ago I had an old 40 series short wheelbase Land Cruiser - lovely car, but with a 4.2 litre 6-cylinder petrol engine it was too costly to run. And I've driven a lot of old Land Rovers over the years, from the Series I right up to the Defenders, Range Rovers, and Discoverys. I don't fancy the Freelander - get yourself a Defender, mate! Currently mine is a twenty-odd year old station wagon and my wife's is a ten year old double-cabin ute. The older one is the toughest, as it has no electronics under the bonnet.

[David Benton]

Well , they timed that right, the region got flooded last week. Lumsden "only" got around 200 mm in 24 hours, further west in the mountains they got 500-600 mm. Likely , the hole they dug the loco out of is now full of mud. Hopefully the loco is high and dry.
Thanks for that John, my interest in the freelanders is in turning them into semi hybrid vehicles , i have 4 or 5 non runners to play with atm. time is the problem , I havd hoped to sell the motorhome part of my business and concentrate on solar / electric vehicles, but no takers so far. The Missus brought a 2017 Ssangyong Actyon for me to "use"( get an earful when I get it dirty), have to admit i are starting to like its zippy performance. functional 4wd too. Our Rexton has clocked up 400k , with no major issues.

[johnthefireman]

Apparently it is possible in Kenya to convert a Land Rover Defender into a fully-electrc vehicle. Some of the safari companies are doing it on the vehicles they use in the national parks. As well as the environmental benefits, it also makes the vehicle almost silent which is good for getting close to the animals. As far as I can see it involves removing the engine and replacing it with a battery pack and electric motor under the bonnet. I'd love to give it a try, but apparently it costs around USD 30 thousand, which I don't have, and which is many times the cost of my old Landie. It also only has a range of around 60 km, which is fine if you're just doing short game drives from a lodge twice a day, but is far too little for me living off-road deep in the bundu. And since I'm off-grid, I would have to spend a lot of money installing more solar panels to be able to charge it.

[David Benton]

They got the other one out .
A 2nd loco and tender pulled from the same river.
For those with Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/lumsdenheritagetrust/