Family to turn train into a sleeper
With a click of a mouse button, a Nelson teenager has secured her family a train for their backyard.
The Claus family, from Belgrove, bought an English electric two-car train on Trade Me on Monday, with their last-minute bid of $29,990.
Monique Claus, 16, pressed the bid button on behalf of her parents.
‘‘I actually bid, so now it’s all my fault,’’ she laughed.
Buying the train was only the first step, however. The family are still trying to work out how they will get the 38-tonne beast to Nelson.
Anja and Hans Claus bought the Metlink train to put on the Railway Reserve section at the back of their property, and plan to turn it into accommodation. Their bid may have been last-minute, but the idea was born 15 years ago when they bought their property, which the Nelson rail line used to go through.
The family thought it would be fitting to put a train back on the former rail line.
‘‘Living by a disused railway line, you go for a train; you live by a disused airport, you go for an airplane,’’ Mr Claus said.
He only became aware of the auction after seeing a story online about a 4-year-old boy who mis- takenly bid on the train last week.
The auction received more than 85,000 views, but Mr Claus was the only bidder.
He had second thoughts about bidding on the train, but said it was an opportunity he could not turn down. ‘‘You can’t buy a train every day of the week.’’ However, he would not have bid any higher.
The Clauses bought the train without seeing it, but were told it came with all the interior furnishings. ‘‘There’s quite a bit of graffiti as well, so you get [that] for free.’’
Transporting it to Nelson could be expensive. They will have to ship the train from Wellington, and were told by Nelson Railway Society manager Bob Murray that they were likely to need a 90-tonne crane to get it to their property.
The family will also need 40 metres of track to put the train on when it gets to their property, and another 60m of track to push the train along to its final resting place.
They have to remove the train from its current home in Wellington within the next two months.
It may have been easier to buy a sleepout, but Mr Claus said a train had more personality.
‘‘It will be a labour of love before it will actually turn into something else than what it is today. For now, it will be just a train, sitting pretty on tracks high on the railway bank in Belgrove,’’ he said.