Pulled from a watery grave
An 1885 locomotive has been lifted from its watery grave at the bottom of a riverbed where it has been for the past 93 years, in a bid for new life.
The Lumsden Heritage Trust had hoped to remove two partly submerged locomotives from the Oreti River in Northern Southland.
They were able to lift one of the locomotives from the river yesterday, but the other remains were deemed too difficult to pull out.
Speaking at the work site, trust chairman John Titter said the experience had been unbelievable.
New Zealand Railways tipped two 1885 V class locomotives into the Oreti River near Lumsden in 1927 for flood protection, after they were deemed to be surplus stock and because the price of scrap metal was low after the war.
They have laid there ever since, but yesterday a crane lifted one of the former freight and passenger locomotives out of its resting place, which is now a tributary of the Oreti.
Several tonnes of silt was removed from the 32-tonne locomotive so it could be lifted.
The trust decided to try to retrieve the locomotives about six years ago, with the plan being to display them at nearby Lumsden.
Fifty per cent of the $158,000 retrieval project came to fruition yesterday, but the decision was made not to attempt to remove the second locomotive because of the magnitude of the task.
‘‘Wow, unbelievable! That’s a mammoth task,’’ said an emotional Titter as the locomotive emerged from its resting place.
On Tuesday night a coal tender was lifted from the same location, with Titter saying the tender and locomotive would be cleaned and displayed adjacent to the railway station precinct at Lumsden. There were no plans to restore them, he said.
The retrieval operation, on the property of Roger Hamilton, was six years in the making and only possible with funding and a lotteries grant.
Some preparation work had been done in late 2018, with earthmoving machinery and manpower removing soil and mud covering some parts of the locomotives.
When the trust was exploring its retrieval options, Titter spoke of the ‘‘hope and dream’’ to get the locomotives out of the ground and on display.
On getting one of the ‘‘magnificent steam machines’’ out, he said his emotions were running high.
‘‘When it was originally lifted the wheels on the 133-year-old locomotive turned,’’ he said.
‘‘We had ambitions of getting them both but over the past couple of days it turned from a massive task to a mammoth task.’’
The locomotive was built specifically for New Zealand and both were probably the last remaining V class locomotives in the world, he said.
The rarity of the trains was well documented. A story published in New Zealand Railways Magazine in 1929 documented the day the locomotives were tipped into the river.
Titter said lines were specially made to get them to the river side near Lumsden.
Trust secretary Rob Scott said it was exciting to see the huge task come to fruition. ‘‘The dream is being fulfilled.’’
‘‘We had ambitions of getting them both but over the past couple of days it turned from a massive task to a mammoth task.’’ John Titter Lumsden Heritage Trust chairman