All aboard tiny home
A Silver Star train carriage has made its final stop on the Coromandel Peninsula.
The carriage began life as part of the Silver Star luxury train service in 1971.
Now the carriage has reached its final destination at a Thames Coast beach town, where it’s been turned into a two-bedroom home by Steve and Norelle Broughton, who live there with nine-year-old grandson Liam Arthur.
The couple love living in the 3-metre-wide and 19-metre-long carriage.
‘‘I just like the small space,’’ Norelle said.
‘‘When we moved out of the [previous house], our double garage was just stacked to the ceiling with banana boxes full of stuff and I’ve just got rid of so much of it because it won’t fit.
‘‘So it’s good – you end up keeping the things you need and the things that are important to you and get rid of the rest.’’
Some of the furniture from their old home was reused, but had to be altered to fit, she said.
Treasures, such as Norelle’s mum’s old suitcases, found a place.
Before the conversion, it was a sleeper carriage. Now it sleeps three in two purpose-built bedrooms. There’s also a small bathroom, a comfortable lounge and a kitchen with a breakfast bar.
‘‘People are amazed when they come in at how spacious it is,’’ she said.
The retired couple spent the past year renovating it.
They bought the carriage for $10,000 in 2016 and moved it on to their Te Puru section.
The carriage was in poor condition when it arrived after sitting in a yard with several other carriages at the A&G Price foundry in Thames for many years.
‘‘They were graffitied and they were filthy,’’ Norelle said.
The carriage had old shower trays throughout that were difficult to remove, and tanks and other parts that needed to be taken out, but the structure was well-built and sound.
The trio lived for six months in the local campground and then in a sleepout in their garage while they worked on the build, which they kept as authentic as possible.
Nineteen sliding windows with curved corners were specially made in Hamilton at a cost of $540 each, and eyecatching, patterned pressed tin from Australia accentuates the curved ceiling in the living space.
Being a sleeper carriage, it came complete with a thick, sound proofing brickette, which helps insulate the home, along with additional insulation Steve installed throughout.
The final cost for the build was around $130,000, which included the initial purchase price, plus crane and transport costs.
Riding the New Zealand Railways Silver Star service was a special journey back in the day, designed as a ‘‘hotel on wheels’’ to compete with jets flying between Auckland and Wellington.
The luxury passenger service ran overnight between Auckland and Wellington on the North Island main trunk railway from 1971 until 1979.
In 1990, 25 of the 31 carriages were bought by the British luxury travel company Orient Express Trains & Cruises, and taken to A&G Price for regauging for Thai and Malaysian railway lines for a regular 5-star luxury cruise-train service between Singapore and Bangkok, which still operates today. The remaining six carriages were sold to individual buyers in 2016.