TANGARAKAU STEAM 4




The various railway installations at Tangarakau in those construction days consisted of four parts. There was the PWD 3ft-6ins (1067mm)-gauge arrival and departure yard for materials brought in from Tahora. The permanent railway yard under construction, the 30 inch (762mm) gauge PWD service railway for formation works on towards Ohura and the 24 inch (609mm) gauge tramline serving the Egmont Collieries owned coal mine in the Tangarakau River gorge.

As the tunnels, bridges and earthworks and permanent rails linking Tahora and Tangarakau were completed all of the workforce and mobile machinery concentrated on the Ohura section. The several tunnels were bored from the ends to meet at their centres. The bores were pierced 10 ft square with narrow gauge rails and power cables to operate the electric locos engaged in hauling out the trucks of spoil. The bores were then opened out to finished size and shape and concrete lined. As the tunnels were finished a third rail was laid outside the narrow gauge to accommodate standard NZR wagons. For hauling them the narrow gauge steam loco was equipped with an offset standard NZR coupling. The electric locos being too light for that work were not thus fitted.

The power for residential lighting as supplied by the Tangye engine was brought on at 3.00 o’clock in the afternoons and ran until midnight. On Tuesdays it was brought on at 1.00pm to provide for the weekly household ironing. The engine was only just adequate to maintain the required power demand and one could by watching the rhythmic fluctuations of the lights in one’s own home count the engine crankshaft revolutions. This engine was near a small door in the engine room that gave access to a staff shower room. An extension of a valve spindle protruded through a gland in the outer end of the valve chest, presumably in a previous installation to have worked a boiler feed-water pump. However, this spindle aimed towards the door nakedly poked back and forth. One day someone got poked and a complaint was laid. So a flat metal bar was bent up, drilled and bolted to the steam chest allowing about one eighth of an inch (3mm) working clearance between the end of the extended rod and inside face of the nice new guard. This guard immediately became a useful handgrip for anyone mounting the doorstep and entering the building. It did not take long for the inevitable “splat” one finger instantly press-formed to 1/8” (3mm) thin. The other quick reaction was the brazing of a sleeve into the guard so that the valve stem could jab harmlessly inside it.

The fuel for the powerhouse was supplied from the local coalmine sited 4 miles (6.4km) up stream in the Tangarakau River gorge. The mine was close to the river on the opposite bank from the road where it descended from the Moki Saddle and converged with the river for a short distance. The mine tramline conveyed the coal from the mine down to the company screening plant situated at Tangarakau. The motive power was a delightful little 0-4-0 well tank steam locomotive built by Andrew Barclay of Scotland. It weighed 7 tons (7.1 tonnes) and had 22” (559mm) wheels. The trucks were typical ¾ ton (0.76 tonne) capacity four wheeled skips some with pressed steel and others with hardwood plank bodies. There were enough trucks for three 24-truck train sets plus a few spares. One rake of trucks would be filling at the mine, one rake emptying at the screening plant at Tangarakau and the third either full or empty in transit. The coal was of relatively poor quality, contained too much stone and shale thus producing a lot of clinker and ash. The PWD powerhouse boilers consumed 12 tons (12.2 tonnes) a day. All of the local steam machinery used it and boiler fire cleaning and ash-pan clearing were ongoing chores throughout the working days.