 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
|||||||||
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
NEW ZEALAND’S ORIGINAL STEAM HERITAGE ATTRACTION |
||||||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||||||||
 |
||||||||||||
|
Traction engines, locomotives, steam-powered oddities and rare mechanical insights into our treasured past—all of that and more is housed here in our regularly-updated Steam Archive. |
||||||||||||
 |
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||
Traction Engines were used for a great variety of jobs. We are most familiar with this machine’s use at the farming level, but here we have a Traction engine shifting an early B.N.Z. building around the Square in Palmerston North, circa July or August, 1901. The building was first situated on the western corner of the Square and Fitzherbert Street (now known as Fitzherbert Avenue) in approximately 1877. Eventually the Building was sold to a Mr Richard Leary, a chemist who had the building moved to a site in Church Street. There it was converted into a private residence. After several changes of ownership, it was later sold to the Palmerston North Commercial Travellers and Warehousemen’s Association in 1944. The house was converted into the Association’s headquarters and served this purpose until its demolition in 1972. The photograph itself was taken by someone standing near the Manawatu Evening Standard's present location, looking eastward towards Fitzherbert Avenue. Back in those times the clock tower was on the Occidental Hotel situated on the eastern corner of the Square and Fitzherbert Avenue.
This photograph, taken in approximately 1908 somewhere within the Northland area, prominently features a giant Kauri log being jauntily steered, possibly to a mill. Though maybe not all present in the picture, a total of 12 bullocks are dragging this hefty load. So hefty, in fact, that if a bullock has an estimated ability to pull a minimum of a single ton, then this would give you an idea of the massive weight of the log itself. Many hundreds of trees were cut for furniture and some interesting antique varieties are still in use, noticable for their lovely grain and colour finishes. Indeed, the Kauri Museum at Matakana has many fine examples in stock. Of course, the work would have been extremely difficult and labour intensive since the trees were enormous in girth. After felling, the tree was often cut by pit sawing. The cutting procedure involved one man down in a pit under the log, while another stood at the top with the saw being used by both men. Each of them had to be cutting in unison or else the saw was likely to jam. No doubt some friendly exchanges took place between the two!
The Marshall 1929 is the only one in the Southern Hemisphere. There is one other in the U.K. dated 1933. It has steam assisted steering not like the chain drive of conventional rollers. The Museum is the third owner, the original owners being the Christchurch City Council. The first job it did was the formation of the airport. It is classified as a footpath roller as the rollers follow directly behind each other. Colin has recently re-tubed it and it now has a current steam ticket after 22 years. It has a high speed forward and reverse mechanism to eliminate the problem of the rollers sinking into the finished road surface. The off-set vertical boiler is a most unusual feature.
This is the oldest steam engine in New Zealand, built in 1869, and purchased by Colin Stevenson in the early 1970s. The Wellington Patent slip was constructed between 1871 and 1873. It has an interesting history. There are at least two versions of its origin - traditional and factual. The traditional relates to the engineer de Lesseps and the Panama Canal. The Suez Canal was nearing completion in 1869. De Lesseps and ship owners in England were aware that a canal at Panama would make the route between England and New Zealand much shorter. They proposed to build a fleet of steam ships to carry a mail service between England and New Zealand. The steamers were to be of 2000 tons, and fitted with sails in the event of engine failure. In NZ it would be desirable to have easy access to a slipway to carry out any necessary repairs. This does not agree with the historical records, and probably the correct version is contained in the reports of the Wellington Chamber of Commerce.