Holiday 15 Part 2 Featherston Fell Museum;
We called in to the Fell Museum at Featherston, New Zealand for a look around. Every thing was well presented, clean and tidy but I did too much talking and not enough videoing. The Fell Locomotives were used by the NZR to haul trains over the Rimutaka incline. See Wikipedia for more info. From memory there were 5 of these Locos all named after mountains, this one is H 199 - Mont Cenis. the only one in the world. The Locos had wheels underneath them that griped a 3rd rail to help traction and pull trains up the incline. It operated between 1878 and 1955. Well worth a visit. Sorry I do not do justice to it.
Fell Locomotive Museum
For Home Learning St. Francis Xavier Tawa
Fell Locomotive Museum
Featherston
June 4, 2016
Music: Train Insanity by Andrew Applepie
Fell Locomotive
This Fell Engine is in the Featherston Locomotive Museum in New Zealand. There is a great children's book called Hero of the Hill based on the train.
(EP35) New Zealand - Wellington to Whanganui
The HubNut Goes Global roadtrip gets underway once more (filmed on 2nd/3rd January), with a journey from Wellington, up through the Remutaka Range, then across to Whanganui (NOT pronounced Fonganui). Includes sight-seeing, a paddle steamer, some hooning in a 2001 Ford Fairmont AU plus the fascinating Fell Locomotive Museum at Featherstone. One loco, two engines!
HubNut support and store options are at
Cab View - Wellington to Masterton – GoPro Hero 3+ Black Edition
In this video we visit Wellington, New Zealand, served by one of the most scenic commuter rail networks in the world. The system has been upgraded with new Electric trains, track upgrades and the overhead wires have been extended as far as Waikanae on the North Island Main Trunk Railway. During the peak periods the electric and diesel trains are busy transporting commuters to and from work, outside the peaks these regular modern trains are a great way for tourists to explore the Wairarapa, Johnsonville and Kapiti Coast lines. Maybe catch a train to Featherston to visit the Fell Locomotive Museum and learn about the legendary Rimutaka incline, or take an evening train along the scenic Kapiti coast to Paekakariki at sunset, the Johnsonville line, once part of the original North Island Main Trunk railway is a steeply graded, twisting line that climbs high into the Wellington suburbs offering great views over the city before plunging into a series of short tunnels to emerge onto a precarious ledge cut into the steep sided valley (try to imagine massive steam locomotives struggling with heavy trains over this tortuous route before it was bypassed by a tunnel in 1937).
We join the driver of our the diesel locomotive for a trip over the Wairarapa line to Masterton, skirting Wellington harbour on a beautiful sunny day, before making our way up the Hutt valley, climbing into the surrounding hills to enter the 5.5 mile (8.8 km) tunnel beneath the Rimutaka mountains, emerging to a splendid vista over Wairarapa lake, before descending to the plains far below, continuing through fertile farmland and attractive settlements to Masterton.
I used 3 different action cameras to make sure I captured this memorable return journey between Wellington and Masterton. Originally I intended to use the footage from which ever camera gave the best result, but as it turned out even though the cameras filmed the same trip, the perspective from each was quite different, leading me to decide on uploading two outward and two return trips.
rimutaka_trailer.mov
In this unique programme, produced by the international award-winning Memory Line team, a surviving fitter, driver and fireman return to the abandoned Incline to relive tales of agony and triumph of the Fell engines battling the mountain range. Also featured is the worlds' only remaining Fell loco. H199, shown in its restored splendour in the Fell Engine Museum at Featherston. This present-day footage , combined with detailed archive film never seen publicly before, brings to life an amazing railway which was surely steam's ultimate test.
DC 4467 arriving at Featherston station
*This video was filmed on the 6th of July 2015. Right around the time when I started using a Nikon D90.*
DC 4467 is seen arriving at Featherston with the Wairarapa Connection service from Masterton to Wellington. The coaches are rebuilt ex-British Rail Mk2 stock. This was during the last days of DC's on the Wairarapa Connection, as only a few days after this footage was captured, DFB class locomotives took over the job. This was because the DC's were not able to keep to the timetables anymore, due to having less power than a DFB and a slower acceleration rate. On the day of our visit to Featherston, there was a Rail-Grinder in the crossing loop. I honestly have no idea what a Rail-Grinder is. Contrary to what some of my friends think, I do not know everything about railways.
As well as being a stop for the Wairarapa Connection, Featherston is also the home of the Fell Locomotive Museum. This museum is dedicated to the Rimutaka Incline, the pre-1955 route over the Rimutaka Ranges. The section that's actually known as the Rimutaka Incline was a 3-mile section running from Cross Creek (in the north) to Summit (in the south). This line had a gradient of 1 in 15, hence the use of a Fell centre-rail to assist with adhesion. There were six engines built specifically for this line - the H class 0-4-2T, or just H class - although engines of the WE, E (2-6-6-0T) and WG (later WW) classes did help out in the early 1900s. The H class had both an inside and outside engine, with the inside engine being used to drive horizontal wheels which gripped the centre rail and helped the train up the incline. The outside engine was a conventional arrangement for the vertical wheels.
The Rimutaka Incline was opened in 1878 and closed in 1955. Surprisingly there was never a runaway train in that entire period. One of the highlights of the line's history was in 1953, when it was used by Queen Elizabeth ii's Royal Train, albeit only in the northbound (downhill) direction. After the closure of the old route, the Rimutaka Tunnel was opened in its place, and all but one of the six H class locomotives were scrapped. H 199 is the only survivor of her class (the other H's were 200 to 204), and is now on display in the Fell Locomotive Museum. H 199 is also the only Fell locomotive left in the entire world.
While only three railways ever used the Fell centre-rail for adhesion (the other two being in Europe), several others have used it for braking purposes. The gradients on these lines are still incredibly steep (e.g. 1 in 27), but they are shallow enough to use conventional adhesion when going uphill. One such line is the Snaefell Mountain Railway on the Isle of Man. There were two lines on the West Coast of the South Island that used the centre-rail only for breaking, neither of which are still in operation. They were the Runanga to Rewanui and Blackball to Roa lines. Runanga is on the branchline from Greymouth to Rapahoe, which is still operation today - although trains on this line are very infrequent. The Rewanui branch was opened in January 1914, and closed in August 1985. As for the Blackball to Roa line, it opened in 1909 and closed in February 1966 after a flood washed out part of the line. Typical motive power for the Rewanui branch was the WE and WW class steam locomotives, later replaced by DJ and/or DSC class diesels, while the Roa line was typically worked by WA class 2-6-2 tank engines, one of which has since been preserved in Gisborne (WA 165).
Rimutaka railway New Zealand
Washout at Siberia on the Rimutaka railway. The remains of the line operated by Fell engines in the 1950's
Awatere River Road/rail bridge
Trip to Featherston
Trip to Featherston, New Zealand, 2007
TR 880 13/11/1992 Masterton, NZ
TR 880 following freight train at Masterton on 13/11/1992.
Copy of Ab 699's birthday;
Greetings All, In August 1922 A & G Price of Thames NZ delivered another new steam locomotive to the New Zealand Railways. It was of the Ab class numbered 699. Ab 699 served in both the North and South Islands before being sold, in 1968, to the newly formed Pleasant Point Museum and Railway and put on static display in memory of the closing Fairlie branch line. I think it was 1972 that 699 was returned to a steaming loco. Work also began relaying 3km of track (I remember spending hours doing that) and building a museum at Kaines Crossing. This society is one of New Zealands top railway museums, by vote of overseas and national tour parties.
rimutaka_trailer.mov
In this unique programme, produced by the international award-winning Memory Line team, a surviving fitter, driver and fireman return to the abandoned Incline to relive tales of agony and triumph of the Fell engines battling the mountain range. Also featured is the worlds' only remaining Fell loco. H199, shown in its restored splendour in the Fell Engine Museum at Featherston. This present-day footage , combined with detailed archive film never seen publicly before, brings to life an amazing railway which was surely steam's ultimate test.
Available at
Fell Locomotive Museum Revisited
Took a day trip to Featherson and went to visit the Museum again
Ride The Historic Denniston Incline
The rugged Rimutakas - Roadside Stories
Early European settlers drove sheep around the shoreline rather than attempt to cross the Rimutaka Range between Wellington and Wairarapa. When a railway was built over the mountains in the 1870s, the steep gradient on the Wairarapa side required Fell engines, which have extra horizontal wheels on a central rail. Fell engines were used on the line until a 9-kilometre tunnel opened in 1955.
Wairarapa region: transport,
Rimutaka Incline accident,
Fell engine,
Railways,
Wellington places: eastern ranges,
Featherston,
Archival audio sourced from Radio New Zealand Sound Archives, Sound files may not be reused without permission from Radio New Zealand Sound Archives (Reference number sa-t-0229pm).
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Roadside Stories are a series of audio guides to places of interest on major road trips in New Zealand. Each guide tells the story of an attraction along the way -- its people, its history, its cultural and natural significance. For more information about Roadside Stories visit
Pictorial Parade No. 20 (1954)
ROYAL TOUR SPECIAL - ACROSS COOK STRAIT Film Censor's Certificate No. U3427 (28 January 1954) Release Date: 29.1.54 NFU Film Information Sheet No. PP20 Cat. Refs. 1956 p.29; 1957 p.33; 1958 p.28; 1962 p.30. B&W 10 mins. 35mm 965 ft. Over Rimutaka incline to the Wairarapa, and the flight across Cook Strait to Blenheim, Nelson, and West Coast of the South Island. Train journey through Southern Alps to Canterbury Plains and Christchurch City.
The Mothership takes us to a Fell Museum
Mother and I boarded the Mothership and visited a Museum.