From Nine to Noon 11 November 2014
Matt Turner has completed a weighty tome, cataloguing pictures and stories of Rail in New Zealand over the past 150 years. It details the history of how New Zealanders have interacted with trains and railways since first European settlement to more recent times. The hardback book has been produced in association with the Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT). It showcases an array of machines through the decades, and tells of epic feats of construction, the identities and personalities who influenced our rail story, tragedies that gripped a nation, how rail was instrumental in shaping our fledgling and largely agricultural economy, and restoration and renaissance into the modern day.
It was not only troop movements that buoyed up passenger numbers during the war years: these Buller children took the train to school in 1945, in a turtle-back A-class car with longitudinal seats and gas lighting.
Photo credit: Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington
Reinforcements of the 28th (Maori) Battalion leave Rotorua in January 1944; too often in wartime the last sight of a friend or family member was framed by an NZR window.
Photo credit: Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington
Wanganui’s tramway service, dating back to 1908, closed in September 1950, not long after this photograph was taken.
Photo credit:Les Downey Collection, courtesy of MOTAT Walsh Memorial Library
In this 2012 snow scene of a scheduled service from Dunedin to Pukerangi, the lead locomotive is Dj 209. Introduced in 1968, the loco has been restored and today operates on the Taieri Gorge Railway.
Photo credit: Reid McNaught
RES excursion trains, mid-1960s
Photo credit: Don Allan, courtesy of MOTAT Walsh Memorial Library
With tractive power from Dj units, a scenic train threads through The Notches (above) and over the Flat Stream Viaduct (right) on the spectacular Taieri Gorge Railway in Otago.
Photo credit: Taieri Gorge Railway
During the summer of 1985–6 the Bay of Islands Scenic Railway leased Mainline Steam’s J 1211 to run highly popular excursions on its line, which runs through the main street of Kawakawa.
Photo credit: Les Downey Collection, courtesy of MOTAT Walsh Memorial Library
The images in this gallery are used with permission and are subject to copyright conditions.
