Heritage - Rail - News
Far flung places Flugel
31st October 2007
Since things are very quiet on the Western Front and I have been sent some more evidence of the travels of our Peter Jenkinson, it is with thanks indeed to the said gentleman that I offer another document showing more of his travels to 'The Coast'.
The picture captions are from Peter too..........................
The reason behind 8 Dxs heading up the hill is this; the first 3 locos are the new set of bankers just arrived in Otira. The next 3 locos are the original bankers heading back to Chch for servicing and the final 2 locos are the train engines. I think the reason for double banking the train could be a safety clause of needing two crew per train up the tunnel, in case of any difficulties. Have sent a slightly better head on shot. (As above. 'K'.)
You can’t go past a photo of 8 Dxs powering out of Otira! That’s approximately 24000Hp of GEs finest making light work of the 1/60 and 1/33 grade. To cap it off, there's another two Dxs departing the other end of Otira with an empty coalie. The mound of rubble on the right is all that remains of the old electric traction depot, it was quite a large building. 10/9/07
Another, almost unique feature on the Coast, are the combined road/rail bridges. Dc 4450 very slowly crosses the wooden truss bridge over the Arahura River , on the Hokitika branch, with the Greymouth bound train. A new road bridge is to be built along side in the near future. 11/9/07
That’s not so bad, as about 15ks up the line to Greymouth, is the Taramakau road/rail bridge. 11/9/07
One place that needs visiting, is the Denniston Incline, north of Westport . I haven’t enough space to go into detail, but it was a self acting incline in two halves, raising 1700ft with grades as steep as 1.25 (80.0 per cent). A start has been made rebuilding the area at the top of the Incline. 13/9/07
If you can manage it, a walk down the Incline will find a number of twisted and broken old Q hopper wagons that had broken free and ran away. 13/9/07
A view of Middle Brake from a small landslide. It’s been just over 40 years ( Aug 16 1967 ) since the Incline closed, but Middle Brake is relatively intact. 13/9/07
It’s good to visit Denniston on a clear sunny day to check out the entire site. But when the cloud rolls in with wind or rain, the place can take on a different feel. The interesting track work is for the arrival and departure of wagons. The tracks on the right and left were the arrival roads for empty wagons and the centre 3 rails were the Inclines ‘mainline’ down the hill for loaded wagons. Note the different style frog. (Note too, the way the scene looks weatherwise. The books say that the residents had it like this for many weeks on end, with no let up. 'K'.)
If you know the right gravel road to take, and the right place to start bush bashing, and the right places in the bush to go left or right, or straight ahead, you just may come across a relic of the once numerous logging tramways that covered the Coast. The ‘bridge’ was once part of a gold dredge! 4/1/07
Here endeth the lesson. Well done Peter. That will be of much more interest to our readers than anything I could come up with. I am sure like me, there will be any amount of readers who are really interested in the reconstruction of the significant features of the Denniston incline. I was there earlier this year, just before the work started and I'm amazed at how much has been done in such a short space of time. I would hope that in time to come, 'Middle Brake' will receive some similar treatment.
Peter must have a sixth sense for his photography. How else could he have been on site to record the 8 x 'DX' train heading out?
I hope we can get some more of Pete's pictures at some future time. Makes a great change from the glue factory. Thanks Pete and keep up the great work! Cheers, 'K'.