Steamy Scenes

I’ve always had a childhood love of steam trains, I don’t know how I got it. My aunt’s back section probably, where we ran like the wind beside the old coal-fired trains the 20-odd metres it took to run the length of the section before waving till it was out of sight. I’ve felt spellbound by them ever since, by their scale and handsome looks.

Not far from Waipukurau (42.6kms as the crow flies, less than an hours drive) is the small but historic village of Ormondville. It’s about six kilometres, via the Norsewood-Ormondville Road, from the town of Norsewood, accessed from SH2 (State Highway2). “Before the Hawkes Bay railway opened through the district in 1880, the mostly Scandinavian village of Norsewood (est. 1872) was the district’s main town. Later and for decades thereafter Ormondville took over that mantle.

Ormandville
The main reason for this transition was the railway station since it served as a window to the world for an area stretching between the Ruahine Ranges and the east coast. The Government of the day also established the district’s service and communications infrastructure such as the Court House, Police Station, Post & Telegraph Office) at Ormondville.”

Back then, Ormondville’s most apparent features were its school, this has closed now and just a few months ago I had looked at buying it but didn’t because of it was just a little too far off the beaten track for this little bird. It was still in very good condition due to the mandatory 10 year maintenance programmes insisted upon by Government policy and came with several classrooms, all of them with their own pot belly fires, a footy field, tennis court and a still extremely well cared for swimming pool albeit with foot trough and overhead shower.

If you weren’t around in this era, foot troughs contained an odourless (and sometimes not) foot cleaning treatment that you had to go through before getting into the pool. I feel sure the overhead shower was simply teacher’s glee if your class had the first 9am swim slot and afterwards it was for the more practical reason of washing the chlorine off. The school was going out the door for a song at $NZD250k.

In 1994 the Labour Government restructured public and social services. The Education Act 1989 decentralised Education Administration that some believed had become too bureaucratic and expensive. The Education Department was replaced with the Ministry of Education and the Regional Education Boards were abolished and School Boards of Trustees were given the power to govern their own affairs.

In 1992, the Education Amendment Act passed by the National Government reduced the number of schools by creating larger central schools. Also, a downturn in farming caused people to leave rural communities. As a result of these changes, many country schools disappeared. This pattern has continued between 1999 and 2006.

Other features of the ‘old’ Ormondville were its Fire Station, the beautiful Church of the Epiphany (built 1882-3), a couple of Halls, the Settlers Arms Hotel AND its railway station. The station officially closed in 2001 when the region’s last passenger service the Bay Express ended. There’s a personal account by engine driver Alan Brabender of a terrifying ordeal he experienced on 13 May 1990 while driving the Bay Express over the Ormondville Viaduct, the account is protected by copyright in this medium but hurl his name down the googler, it’s an interesting account. As for Ormondville station now, it offers ‘unique boutique accommodation’ for tourists.

Mainline Steam
Mainline Steam is an organisation devoted to the restoration and operation of historic mainline steam locomotives. In 2009 from October 12-31st they’re conducting a N.Z. Steam Tour. If you’re interested they’re starting off from Auckland and going to Christchurch and lots of places in between. This steam hauled journey will visit such places as Napier, Gisborne, Wellington, Christchurch, Dunedin and Queenstown. They reckon there’ll be lots of opportunity to take in the sights in and around these beautiful cities.

The company uses its collection of mainline certified locomotives to haul the train around New Zealand and for that tour they intend to double head (the use of two locomotives at the front of a train, each operated individually by its own crew) the train over some sections of the tour. On the trip they will be spending time in Dunedin where the Otago Excursion Train Trust is organising the 100th anniversary of the line to Middlemarch.

The Taieri Gorge Line
Special trains will be operated over the Taieri Gorge line and their steam locomotive Ab663 will be hauling one of them. Steam is rare on this line so you won’t want to miss this! As well as riding behind their locomotives there will be time to visit places such as the Weka Pass Railway and the Plains Railway and they kick the tour off with a visit to the Glenbrook Vintage Railway where they have booked a steam hauled mixed train especially for those on the tour. GVR has one of the largest collections of restored rolling stock in New Zealand. There will also be time to ride regular scheduled trains in Wellington and to visit other rail museums along the way.

You can hear a steam train whistle from a long long way a ways so imagine my ABSOLUTE delight when I was standing in the kitchen in our place in Burwood, in Sydney and I hear one. I couldn’t believe my ears at first, Josh was three years old. I don’t think I even dressed him, simply gathered him up in his pj’s, put his jacket on him and headed straight for the Burwood railway line (less than a 4 min drive in the car).

There were people everywhere along both sides of the track from Albert Crescent on the Burwood side and Paisley Road on the Croydon side. It was exciting! It was fifteen more minutes before Locomotive No. 4472 came into view. He was the Flying Scotsman and he’d been brought out to Australia in October 1988 to take part in the country’s bicentenary celebrations. He was beautiful.

I think somewhere in his three year old mind Josh thought ‘The Flying Scotsman’ was pretty cool too because he developed a great love for the the Rev. Wilbert Awdry’s ‘The Railway Series’ a set of story books about a fictional railway system located on the fictional Island of Sodor and the engines that lived on it. These were famously renamed as ‘The Thomas the Tank Engine’ series.

Gordon (the big engine named after a bossy child who lived on the same road) was one of the first characters created in ‘The Railway Series’. Gordon is a 4-6-2 similar to the Flying Scotsman, a LNER A3 class locomotive. Nearly all of ‘The Railway Series’ stories were based upon real-life events. As a lifelong railway enthusiast, Wilbert was keen that his stories should be as realistic as possible. The engine characters were almost all based upon real classes of locomotive, and some of the railways themselves were directly based upon real lines in the British Isles.”

I’d love to be sitting inside one of the old carriages doing the trip, hopefully long long before then the West Island ducks will have landed. Here’s hoping!