112-575: Taylor's Siding The Ngapara and Tokarahi Branches were two connected railway branch lines in northern Otago , New Zealand , part of the national rail network . The Ngapara Branch opened in 1877 and almost all of it closed in 1959; the remaining few kilometres, called the Waiareka Industrial Line , were removed in 1997. The Tokarahi Branch branched off the Ngapara Branch. It operated from 1887 until 1930 and
224-521: A DSC class shutning locomotive . The siding closed in late 1997, and the track was lifted in 1999. Traces of the Ngapara and Tokarahi Branches survive remarkably well. The old formation is often very distinct: rails are still embedded into the road surface at Weston, the Enfield station building and goods shed have been moved into a paddock and are in good repair, Corriedale yard is well preserved with
336-408: A crank on a driving axle. Steam locomotives have been phased out in most parts of the world for economical and safety reasons, although many are preserved in working order by heritage railways . Electric locomotives draw power from a stationary source via an overhead wire or third rail . Some also or instead use a battery . In locomotives that are powered by high-voltage alternating current ,
448-586: A dining car . Some lines also provide over-night services with sleeping cars . Some long-haul trains have been given a specific name . Regional trains are medium distance trains that connect cities with outlying, surrounding areas, or provide a regional service, making more stops and having lower speeds. Commuter trains serve suburbs of urban areas, providing a daily commuting service. Airport rail links provide quick access from city centres to airports . High-speed rail are special inter-city trains that operate at much higher speeds than conventional railways,
560-731: A fourth rail system in 1890 on the City and South London Railway , now part of the London Underground Northern line . This was the first major railway to use electric traction . The world's first deep-level electric railway, it runs from the City of London , under the River Thames , to Stockwell in south London. The first practical AC electric locomotive was designed by Charles Brown , then working for Oerlikon , Zürich. In 1891, Brown had demonstrated long-distance power transmission, using three-phase AC , between
672-542: A funicular railway at the Hohensalzburg Fortress in Austria. The line originally used wooden rails and a hemp haulage rope and was operated by human or animal power, through a treadwheel . The line is still operational, although in updated form and is possibly the oldest operational railway. Wagonways (or tramways ) using wooden rails, hauled by horses, started appearing in the 1550s to facilitate
784-492: A hydro-electric plant at Lauffen am Neckar and Frankfurt am Main West, a distance of 280 km (170 mi). Using experience he had gained while working for Jean Heilmann on steam–electric locomotive designs, Brown observed that three-phase motors had a higher power-to-weight ratio than DC motors and, because of the absence of a commutator , were simpler to manufacture and maintain. However, they were much larger than
896-431: A steam engine that provides adhesion. Coal , petroleum , or wood is burned in a firebox , boiling water in the boiler to create pressurized steam. The steam travels through the smokebox before leaving via the chimney or smoke stack. In the process, it powers a piston that transmits power directly through a connecting rod (US: main rod) and a crankpin (US: wristpin) on the driving wheel (US main driver) or to
1008-469: A transformer in the locomotive converts the high-voltage low-current power to low-voltage high current used in the traction motors that power the wheels. Modern locomotives may use three-phase AC induction motors or direct current motors. Under certain conditions, electric locomotives are the most powerful traction. They are also the cheapest to run and provide less noise and no local air pollution. However, they require high capital investments both for
1120-435: A coal mine and, at the turn of the 20th century, a flour mill were located in Ngapara, and limestone for both building blocks and agricultural uses was loaded from quarries along the line. Enfield had a ballast pit until the late 1940s or early 1950s, used to supply materials for the protection of Oamaru's foreshore. In the early days, motive power included the F class , which were stationed in Ngapara and were known to haul
1232-414: A cracked mainframe but was otherwise in mechanically good condition. It was decided to use part of the good-condition frames from under A 661, then recently withdrawn, to replace the damaged section from 792. The locomotive's frame was then altered by cutting the affected section out and fitting the new frame section, ex-661. This meant that certain locomotives should have changed identity - the identity of
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#17327972754601344-550: A diesel locomotive from the company in 1909. The world's first diesel-powered locomotive was operated in the summer of 1912 on the Winterthur–Romanshorn railway in Switzerland, but was not a commercial success. The locomotive weight was 95 tonnes and the power was 883 kW with a maximum speed of 100 km/h (62 mph). Small numbers of prototype diesel locomotives were produced in a number of countries through
1456-478: A double track plateway, erroneously sometimes cited as world's first public railway, in south London. William Jessop had earlier used a form of all-iron edge rail and flanged wheels successfully for an extension to the Charnwood Forest Canal at Nanpantan , Loughborough, Leicestershire in 1789. In 1790, Jessop and his partner Outram began to manufacture edge rails. Jessop became a partner in
1568-437: A large turning radius in its design. While high-speed rail is most often designed for passenger travel, some high-speed systems also offer freight service. Since 1980, rail transport has changed dramatically, but a number of heritage railways continue to operate as part of living history to preserve and maintain old railway lines for services of tourist trains. A train is a connected series of rail vehicles that move along
1680-498: A larger locomotive named Galvani , exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition in 1841. The seven-ton vehicle had two direct-drive reluctance motors , with fixed electromagnets acting on iron bars attached to a wooden cylinder on each axle, and simple commutators . It hauled a load of six tons at four miles per hour (6 kilometers per hour) for a distance of one and a half miles (2.4 kilometres). It
1792-580: A later date. The locomotives were extremely versatile, and the A class were used on almost every section of the NZR network, the exception being the Nelson Section (closed 1955). In later years, the class were displaced from their mainline duties first by the larger J and K class locomotives, and later by the arrival of diesel locomotives (D and D classes in the North Island, D and D classes in
1904-696: A line to Ngapara in 1872, with construction commencing during the first half of 1874. The Public Works Department began running trains on the line during 1876, but construction was hampered by delays and other problems, including an incident in May 1876 when two died after a contractor's locomotive exploded. On 1 April 1877 the 24.34-kilometre line from Waiareka Junction on the Main South Line opened to Ngapara. The junction points faced south, away from Oamaru, because north-facing points would have required an excessively sharp curve. In June 1879, construction of
2016-423: A locomotive. This involves one or more powered vehicles being located at the front of the train, providing sufficient tractive force to haul the weight of the full train. This arrangement remains dominant for freight trains and is often used for passenger trains. A push–pull train has the end passenger car equipped with a driver's cab so that the engine driver can remotely control the locomotive. This allows one of
2128-477: A number of trains per hour (tph). Passenger trains can usually be into two types of operation, intercity railway and intracity transit. Whereas intercity railway involve higher speeds, longer routes, and lower frequency (usually scheduled), intracity transit involves lower speeds, shorter routes, and higher frequency (especially during peak hours). Intercity trains are long-haul trains that operate with few stops between cities. Trains typically have amenities such as
2240-676: A piece of circular rail track in Bloomsbury , London, the Catch Me Who Can , but never got beyond the experimental stage with railway locomotives, not least because his engines were too heavy for the cast-iron plateway track then in use. The first commercially successful steam locomotive was Matthew Murray 's rack locomotive Salamanca built for the Middleton Railway in Leeds in 1812. This twin-cylinder locomotive
2352-465: A pivotal role in the development and widespread adoption of the steam locomotive. His designs considerably improved on the work of the earlier pioneers. He built the locomotive Blücher , also a successful flanged -wheel adhesion locomotive. In 1825 he built the locomotive Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in the northeast of England, which became the first public steam railway in
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#17327972754602464-479: A point about 200m short of the former junction with the Main South Line at Waiareka. In August 2006 a proposal was made to reinstate the first 4.5 km of the branch. Weston is under consideration as the location for a cement works, and if chosen, the harbour in either Timaru or Port Chalmers would be used for export purposes. The company intending to establish the cement works, Holcim , has stated
2576-439: A revival in recent decades due to road congestion and rising fuel prices, as well as governments investing in rail as a means of reducing CO 2 emissions . Smooth, durable road surfaces have been made for wheeled vehicles since prehistoric times. In some cases, they were narrow and in pairs to support only the wheels. That is, they were wagonways or tracks. Some had grooves or flanges or other mechanical means to keep
2688-541: A side branch from Windsor Junction on the Ngapara Branch to Tokarahi began, and through the economic depression of the 1880s building the line was used to provide unemployment relief. The 19.22-kilometre line opened on 8 July 1887. There were proposals that the two branches be extended to join the Kurow Branch , but they were abandoned without any progress made. Source Once the Tokarahi Branch opened,
2800-739: A single lever to control both engine and generator in a coordinated fashion, and was the prototype for all diesel–electric locomotive control systems. In 1914, world's first functional diesel–electric railcars were produced for the Königlich-Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen ( Royal Saxon State Railways ) by Waggonfabrik Rastatt with electric equipment from Brown, Boveri & Cie and diesel engines from Swiss Sulzer AG . They were classified as DET 1 and DET 2 ( de.wiki ). The first regular used diesel–electric locomotives were switcher (shunter) locomotives . General Electric produced several small switching locomotives in
2912-413: A standard across the type. These boilers were of standard construction, no matter which firm built them, and as such were interchangeable across any locomotives of the type. They were also similar to the boilers built for the W and W class 4-6-4T tank locomotives in 1939 - in fact, the W boiler and A boilers were the same, with those fitted to the W fitted with the necessary components to draw water from
3024-407: A standard. Following SNCF's successful trials, 50 Hz, now also called industrial frequency was adopted as standard for main-lines across the world. Earliest recorded examples of an internal combustion engine for railway use included a prototype designed by William Dent Priestman . Sir William Thomson examined it in 1888 and described it as a "Priestman oil engine mounted upon a truck which
3136-498: A strong preference to use rail transport between the cement works and harbour and thus would seek to restore the line to Weston. The rail corridor is still owned by ONTRACK and the proposal would involve the operation of at least two trains each way daily. The rail corridor was designated as "closed" in the Waitaki District Council 's district plan. ONTRACK asserted that this is a clerical error and has filed with
3248-620: A superheater after trials conducted on A 409. It also had the distinctive Vanderbilt tender , which would become a hallmark of the A class during its working life. This locomotive was to become the first of 141 similar locomotives built by various builders in New Zealand and the United Kingdom for NZR. The A class compared more favourably in service against the compound A class. Reputedly the first engine able to generate one horsepower for every 100 pounds of weight (16.4 W/kg),
3360-632: A terminus about one-half mile (800 m) away. A funicular railway was also made at Broseley in Shropshire some time before 1604. This carried coal for James Clifford from his mines down to the River Severn to be loaded onto barges and carried to riverside towns. The Wollaton Wagonway , completed in 1604 by Huntingdon Beaumont , has sometimes erroneously been cited as the earliest British railway. It ran from Strelley to Wollaton near Nottingham . The Middleton Railway in Leeds , which
3472-408: A wheel. This was a large stationary engine , powering cotton mills and a variety of machinery; the state of boiler technology necessitated the use of low-pressure steam acting upon a vacuum in the cylinder, which required a separate condenser and an air pump . Nevertheless, as the construction of boilers improved, Watt investigated the use of high-pressure steam acting directly upon a piston, raising
Ngapara and Tokarahi Branches - Misplaced Pages Continue
3584-472: Is capital-intensive and less flexible than road transport, it can carry heavy loads of passengers and cargo with greater energy efficiency and safety. Precursors of railways driven by human or animal power have existed since antiquity, but modern rail transport began with the invention of the steam locomotive in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the 19th century. The first passenger railway,
3696-410: Is a single, self-powered car, and may be electrically propelled or powered by a diesel engine . Multiple units have a driver's cab at each end of the unit, and were developed following the ability to build electric motors and other engines small enough to fit under the coach. There are only a few freight multiple units, most of which are high-speed post trains. Steam locomotives are locomotives with
3808-399: Is dominant. Electro-diesel locomotives are built to run as diesel–electric on unelectrified sections and as electric locomotives on electrified sections. Alternative methods of motive power include magnetic levitation , horse-drawn, cable , gravity, pneumatics and gas turbine . A passenger train stops at stations where passengers may embark and disembark. The oversight of the train is
3920-477: Is one of the two primary means of land transport , next to road transport . It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, thanks to its energy efficiency and potentially high speed . Rolling stock on rails generally encounters lower frictional resistance than rubber-tyred road vehicles, allowing rail cars to be coupled into longer trains . Power is usually provided by diesel or electrical locomotives . While railway transport
4032-556: Is worked on a temporary line of rails to show the adaptation of a petroleum engine for locomotive purposes." In 1894, a 20 hp (15 kW) two axle machine built by Priestman Brothers was used on the Hull Docks . In 1906, Rudolf Diesel , Adolf Klose and the steam and diesel engine manufacturer Gebrüder Sulzer founded Diesel-Sulzer-Klose GmbH to manufacture diesel-powered locomotives. Sulzer had been manufacturing diesel engines since 1898. The Prussian State Railways ordered
4144-417: The 1906 A class , 141 were built between 1915 and 1927 by NZR's Addington Workshops , A & G Price of Thames, New Zealand , and North British Locomotive Company , making the A class the largest class of steam locomotives ever to run in New Zealand. An additional eleven were rebuilt from the tank version of the A – the W class – between 1947 and 1957. Two North British-made locomotives were lost in
4256-594: The G class locomotive tenders from 1937. Enthusiasts were able to identify these different types of bogies by their design characteristics - for example, the x-6002 bogies had a prominent journal box and were made of steel bar sections. During the late 1950s to early 1960s, many older A class locomotives were being withdrawn as they wore out and were replaced by locomotives displaced from other regions. With many engines still in relatively good condition, these engines were cannibalised following withdrawal to keep other engines going until they were either worn out or replaced by
4368-541: The Stockton and Darlington Railway , opened in 1825. The quick spread of railways throughout Europe and North America, following the 1830 opening of the first intercity connection in England, was a key component of the Industrial Revolution . The adoption of rail transport lowered shipping costs compared to water transport, leading to "national markets" in which prices varied less from city to city. In
4480-615: The United Kingdom , South Korea , Scandinavia, Belgium and the Netherlands. The construction of many of these lines has resulted in the dramatic decline of short-haul flights and automotive traffic between connected cities, such as the London–Paris–Brussels corridor, Madrid–Barcelona, Milan–Rome–Naples, as well as many other major lines. High-speed trains normally operate on standard gauge tracks of continuously welded rail on grade-separated right-of-way that incorporates
4592-414: The overhead lines and the supporting infrastructure, as well as the generating station that is needed to produce electricity. Accordingly, electric traction is used on urban systems, lines with high traffic and for high-speed rail. Diesel locomotives use a diesel engine as the prime mover . The energy transmission may be either diesel–electric , diesel-mechanical or diesel–hydraulic but diesel–electric
Ngapara and Tokarahi Branches - Misplaced Pages Continue
4704-458: The puddling process in 1784. In 1783 Cort also patented the rolling process , which was 15 times faster at consolidating and shaping iron than hammering. These processes greatly lowered the cost of producing iron and rails. The next important development in iron production was hot blast developed by James Beaumont Neilson (patented 1828), which considerably reduced the amount of coke (fuel) or charcoal needed to produce pig iron. Wrought iron
4816-418: The rotary phase converter , enabling electric locomotives to use three-phase motors whilst supplied via a single overhead wire, carrying the simple industrial frequency (50 Hz) single phase AC of the high-voltage national networks. An important contribution to the wider adoption of AC traction came from SNCF of France after World War II. The company conducted trials at AC 50 Hz, and established it as
4928-399: The 11-mile peg still in place, and both Tokarahi branch tunnels survive, on private land. In Tokarahi very little remains of the terminus, but in Ngapara some rails remain embedded in tar seal where the backshunt crossed the highway, the loading bank and platform edge survive, and the old station sign is affixed to the local rugby club's rooms. The old flour mill that once provided traffic for
5040-540: The 1880s, railway electrification began with tramways and rapid transit systems. Starting in the 1940s, steam locomotives were replaced by diesel locomotives . The first high-speed railway system was introduced in Japan in 1964, and high-speed rail lines now connect many cities in Europe , East Asia , and the eastern United States . Following some decline due to competition from cars and airplanes, rail transport has had
5152-521: The 1930s (the famous " 44-tonner " switcher was introduced in 1940) Westinghouse Electric and Baldwin collaborated to build switching locomotives starting in 1929. In 1929, the Canadian National Railways became the first North American railway to use diesels in mainline service with two units, 9000 and 9001, from Westinghouse. Although steam and diesel services reaching speeds up to 200 km/h (120 mph) were started before
5264-508: The 1960s in Europe, they were not very successful. The first electrified high-speed rail Tōkaidō Shinkansen was introduced in 1964 between Tokyo and Osaka in Japan. Since then high-speed rail transport, functioning at speeds up to and above 300 km/h (190 mph), has been built in Japan, Spain, France , Germany, Italy, the People's Republic of China, Taiwan (Republic of China),
5376-518: The 1960s, as diesel traction replaced steam , with the last concentrations of the A class being located on the West Coast and in Southland. Many of those withdrawn were South Island locomotives which had reached the end of their economic lives between 1963 and 1967 (when the D class diesels arrived) and were replaced by ex-North Island locomotives. By 1971, several still remained on the books at
5488-464: The 40 km Burgdorf–Thun line , Switzerland. Italian railways were the first in the world to introduce electric traction for the entire length of a main line rather than a short section. The 106 km Valtellina line was opened on 4 September 1902, designed by Kandó and a team from the Ganz works. The electrical system was three-phase at 3 kV 15 Hz. In 1918, Kandó invented and developed
5600-400: The A class was efficient and versatile, and the engines were easy to maintain and operate. It became clear that there were several shortcomings of the design – notably the cab was too small, and the tenders were not sturdy enough. A new and longer cab was fitted to all new locomotives being built from that time onwards, with the first appearing on A 663. New tender structures were also built at
5712-429: The A and Q class 4-6-2 locomotives from their duties, resulting in the withdrawal of all Q class locomotives by 1957 and a reduction in the number of A class locomotives. The locomotives also worked some lesser mainline duties, and others, such as those at Gisborne, were used as bankers to assist trains heading south to Napier. Being highly capable, the A class were used for both freight and passenger trains. The A class
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#17327972754605824-530: The Butterley Company in 1790. The first public edgeway (thus also first public railway) built was Lake Lock Rail Road in 1796. Although the primary purpose of the line was to carry coal, it also carried passengers. These two systems of constructing iron railways, the "L" plate-rail and the smooth edge-rail, continued to exist side by side until well into the early 19th century. The flanged wheel and edge-rail eventually proved its superiority and became
5936-611: The Christchurch and Dunedin railway stations. Two replicas were made in 1963 for the NZR centenary event, and these are held by the New Zealand Railway & Locomotive Society. Other reproductions have been made, including one for the KiwiRail War Memorial at Hutt Workshops, which was dedicated in 2010. This was the only steam locomotive to be named after 1877. A 663 was named Sharon Lee when it
6048-514: The DC motors of the time and could not be mounted in underfloor bogies : they could only be carried within locomotive bodies. In 1894, Hungarian engineer Kálmán Kandó developed a new type 3-phase asynchronous electric drive motors and generators for electric locomotives. Kandó's early 1894 designs were first applied in a short three-phase AC tramway in Évian-les-Bains (France), which was constructed between 1896 and 1898. In 1896, Oerlikon installed
6160-618: The Environment Court in September 2007 to have the status corrected so that the railway can be reinstated. The Waiareka Valley Preservation Society (WVPS), whose existence is premised upon opposition to Holcim's proposal, has challenged ONTRACK and filed with the Environment Court to have the railway's reinstatement declared to be in contravention of the Resource Management Act 1991 . The railway's reinstatement
6272-687: The Karara Creek and intersects the Tokarahi - Windsor line at a point approx 4km from Tokarahi, and 1km from the Tokarahi-Ngapara Road. Trail, creek and railway formation run roughly parallel for a kilometre before creek and trail diverge, although the formation can be observed for most of the next kilometre. Approximately 5km further the trail drops down Tunnel Road to the western portal of the Rakis Tunnel and follows (mostly on)
6384-608: The South Island). As a result of the arrival of diesel locomotives in the North Island from 1955 onwards, many of the North Island-based locomotives were transferred to the South Island to see out their remaining working lives. The final duties of the A class were on branch line workings, where they found their niche after being displaced from most mainline duties by larger locomotives. These in turn displaced
6496-535: The WVPS, who sub sequentially won an appeal in the Environment Court, requiring the re-opening of the branch line to be notified. As of December 2009 the cement works project remains under consideration. A decision on the cement works proposal is expected to occur in August or September 2010. If the project goes ahead, a sand quarry will be established at Windsor, directly adjacent to the old Tokarahi Branch, with access along
6608-416: The base of the smokebox. The cast-iron smokebox doors were replaced by steel ones, and the brake pump was moved from its original location on the right-hand side of the smokebox to a new position, recessed into the running board, just forward of the cab on the same side. Another notable change was that many of the class were fitted with ballast blocks for mechanical purposes. As the locomotives rode well, this
6720-417: The close of steam operations on the NZR. Three remained on NZR books in 1972 - A 's 778 and 795 remained at Lyttelton to heat the carriages for the "Boat Train", formerly known in an informal manner as the "Jackaroo", while A 663 remained either at Greymouth's Elmer Lane locomotive depot or at Dunedin. With interest for a nostalgic steam-operated train growing, both 778 and 795 were restored that same year for
6832-430: The duty of a guard/train manager/conductor . Passenger trains are part of public transport and often make up the stem of the service, with buses feeding to stations. Passenger trains provide long-distance intercity travel, daily commuter trips, or local urban transit services, operating with a diversity of vehicles, operating speeds, right-of-way requirements, and service frequency. Service frequencies are often expressed as
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#17327972754606944-402: The end of the 19th century, because they were cleaner compared to steam-driven trams which caused smoke in city streets. In 1784 James Watt , a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer, patented a design for a steam locomotive . Watt had improved the steam engine of Thomas Newcomen , hitherto used to pump water out of mines, and developed a reciprocating engine in 1769 capable of powering
7056-471: The end of the 19th century, improving the quality of steel and further reducing costs. Thus steel completely replaced the use of iron in rails, becoming standard for all railways. The first passenger horsecar or tram , Swansea and Mumbles Railway , was opened between Swansea and Mumbles in Wales in 1807. Horses remained the preferable mode for tram transport even after the arrival of steam engines until
7168-527: The engine by one power stroke. The transmission system employed a large flywheel to even out the action of the piston rod. On 21 February 1804, the world's first steam-powered railway journey took place when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales . Trevithick later demonstrated a locomotive operating upon
7280-475: The era of great expansion of railways that began in the late 1860s. Steel rails lasted several times longer than iron. Steel rails made heavier locomotives possible, allowing for longer trains and improving the productivity of railroads. The Bessemer process introduced nitrogen into the steel, which caused the steel to become brittle with age. The open hearth furnace began to replace the Bessemer process near
7392-549: The experimental locomotive for what would become the most prolific type on the New Zealand Railways network, with construction beginning on a new prototype 4-6-2 in 1915. The new locomotive, A 608, was to a completely different design from A 409 when it emerged from the Addington Workshops in 1915. Although largely similar to the A class, it had a new design of cab and boiler, which was fitted with
7504-469: The famous Kingston Flyer . A 663 was used initially at Dunedin for spare parts to keep 778 and 795, now named David McKellar and Greenvale respectively. A 608 gained the notable distinction of being named Passchendaele in 1918 to commemorate the NZR staff who had been killed in the First World War. The locomotive had its nameplates removed in the 1940s, and they were placed on display in
7616-522: The first commercial example of the system on the Lugano Tramway . Each 30-tonne locomotive had two 110 kW (150 hp) motors run by three-phase 750 V 40 Hz fed from double overhead lines. Three-phase motors run at a constant speed and provide regenerative braking , and are well suited to steeply graded routes, and the first main-line three-phase locomotives were supplied by Brown (by then in partnership with Walter Boveri ) in 1899 on
7728-539: The formation for six or seven kilometres to a point about 1.5km short of the junction at Windsor. After leaving Enfield (on the Ngapara Branchline) the cycle trail follows on the railway embankment for about 1km (including a significant bridge) until rejoining the Weston-Ngapara Road. The trail again follows on the railway formation from east of the lime works at McCormacks, through Weston, to
7840-403: The heavier steel-panelled carriages built from 1930 until 1943. Despite being displaced, the A class could still be found at work on relief expresses during holiday periods. The locomotives did not change greatly during their NZR career. The first change was to fit Waikato-type spark arrestors to many of the North Island-based engines, resulting in a new pear-shaped smokebox with an ash hopper at
7952-404: The highest possible radius. All these features are dramatically different from freight operations, thus justifying exclusive high-speed rail lines if it is economically feasible. NZR Ab class The NZR A class was a class of 4-6-2 Pacific tender steam locomotive that operated on New Zealand 's national railway system for New Zealand Railways (NZR). Originally an improvement on
8064-421: The limeworks 4.74 kilometres from the junction with the main line, which provided a few hundred tonnes of freight daily. In 1958, regular services were cancelled and trains ran only when required, restricted to 10 km/h due to the poor condition of the track. Financial losses and the prohibitive cost of repairs meant that closure of the line past the limeworks came on 31 July 1959; despite local protests to keep
8176-1230: The limit being regarded at 200 to 350 kilometres per hour (120 to 220 mph). High-speed trains are used mostly for long-haul service and most systems are in Western Europe and East Asia. Magnetic levitation trains such as the Shanghai maglev train use under-riding magnets which attract themselves upward towards the underside of a guideway and this line has achieved somewhat higher peak speeds in day-to-day operation than conventional high-speed railways, although only over short distances. Due to their heightened speeds, route alignments for high-speed rail tend to have broader curves than conventional railways, but may have steeper grades that are more easily climbed by trains with large kinetic energy. High kinetic energy translates to higher horsepower-to-ton ratios (e.g. 20 horsepower per short ton or 16 kilowatts per tonne); this allows trains to accelerate and maintain higher speeds and negotiate steep grades as momentum builds up and recovered in downgrades (reducing cut and fill and tunnelling requirements). Since lateral forces act on curves, curvatures are designed with
8288-544: The line open, the final train departed Ngapara behind A 783. This class and the A were the mainstay of motive power on the branch for its final 25 years. The branch was truncated to Cormacks from August 1959 and was known as Taylor's Siding after the business it served, Taylor's Limeworks. In the 1990s the branch was renamed the Waiareka Industrial Line. The lime works continued to provide traffic until 1997, with shunt services from Oamaru usually hauled by
8400-404: The locomotive is attached (supposedly) to the frame of the locomotive. Therefore, A 792 should have become A 661 as a result of the frame repairs. However, with 661 written off and 792 being a younger locomotive that still had an economic career ahead, the NZR would not have considered 'returning' 661 to service and 'scrapping' 792. The majority of the class was withdrawn from NZR services during
8512-479: The locomotive's side tanks. This type of boiler was also adapted for use on the Q and A class 4-6-2 tender locomotives of 1901 and 1915 respectively when their original boilers wore out. In the case of the A class, the boiler change was not necessitated by the condition of the boilers but due to the limitations of the original boilers. The replacement took place in the 1930s, and these locomotives gained new heights of reliability, before they were withdrawn in 1957 (at
8624-429: The locomotive-hauled train's drawbacks to be removed, since the locomotive need not be moved to the front of the train each time the train changes direction. A railroad car is a vehicle used for the haulage of either passengers or freight. A multiple unit has powered wheels throughout the whole train. These are used for rapid transit and tram systems, as well as many both short- and long-haul passenger trains. A railcar
8736-569: The main portion of the B&;O to the new line to New York through a series of tunnels around the edges of Baltimore's downtown. Electricity quickly became the power supply of choice for subways, abetted by the Sprague's invention of multiple-unit train control in 1897. By the early 1900s most street railways were electrified. The London Underground , the world's oldest underground railway, opened in 1863, and it began operating electric services using
8848-433: The mid-1920s. The Soviet Union operated three experimental units of different designs since late 1925, though only one of them (the E el-2 ) proved technically viable. A significant breakthrough occurred in 1914, when Hermann Lemp , a General Electric electrical engineer, developed and patented a reliable direct current electrical control system (subsequent improvements were also patented by Lemp). Lemp's design used
8960-413: The new diesel locomotives then being purchased by NZR. This became a fairly common practice at the time; as the locomotives were of a standard design, parts could be taken from any engine to ensure another could keep running for some time to come. One example of this was A 792, one of the ten W class conversions from 1947 to 1957. Shopped for an 'A' grade overhaul at Hillside Workshops, the locomotive had
9072-412: The noise they made on the tracks. There are many references to their use in central Europe in the 16th century. Such a transport system was later used by German miners at Caldbeck , Cumbria , England, perhaps from the 1560s. A wagonway was built at Prescot , near Liverpool , sometime around 1600, possibly as early as 1594. Owned by Philip Layton, the line carried coal from a pit near Prescot Hall to
9184-476: The old railway formation. There will also be an opencast coal mine at Ngapara, while the cement works and limestone quarry will be built close to the former Taylors limeworks at Cormacks. In August 2013, Holcim announced that the project was on hold indefinitely. Railway Rail transport (also known as train transport ) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks , which usually consist of two parallel steel rails . Rail transport
9296-421: The others being the re-built G class 4-6-2, and the later J/Ja/Jb class 4-8-2 engines. The tenders, although satisfactory, suffered from having been constructed too lightly for the intended task, and were also prone to rusting, particularly around the frame channels. This necessitated the complete replacement of the tender frames from some locomotives, although not all were treated so. The standard A tender design
9408-589: The passenger train from Windsor Junction to Oamaru prior to 1918. Other classes utilised included the P , T , U , U , W , and W . T class are known to have operated to Tokarahi into the 1920s. The Ngapara and Tokarahi Branches were some of the first in the country to lose their passenger services, in December 1926, when buses replaced trains in an attempt to stem increasing financial losses. In 1927, Ngapara's locomotive depot closed and trains operated from Oamaru. The Tokarahi Branch closed on 14 July 1930. This
9520-461: The possibility of a smaller engine that might be used to power a vehicle. Following his patent, Watt's employee William Murdoch produced a working model of a self-propelled steam carriage in that year. The first full-scale working railway steam locomotive was built in the United Kingdom in 1804 by Richard Trevithick , a British engineer born in Cornwall . This used high-pressure steam to drive
9632-529: The railway is also still present in the town. Since 2008 there has been an annual "Over The Tunnels" recreational run/ride of the Tokarahi Branch organised by Waitaki Girls High School. The event consists of a half marathon and a cycle ride along the route of the line. The events have attracted hundreds of participants. The final section of the Alps to Ocean cycle trail (from Duntroon to Oamaru) follows these two branchlines in places. The cycle trail follows beside
9744-465: The same time as the Q class). All of these boilers were then put back into the A class pool, and were reused on engines of that class. In all, 6 separate classes used the standard A boiler. When Q, A and G class locomotives were scrapped in the 1950s, the boilers were overhauled to keep locomotives of A, A , and W serviceable. Throughout their NZR careers, the A class were known for their Vanderbilt tenders - one of three classes to use this tender,
9856-441: The standard for railways. Cast iron used in rails proved unsatisfactory because it was brittle and broke under heavy loads. The wrought iron invented by John Birkinshaw in 1820 replaced cast iron. Wrought iron, usually simply referred to as "iron", was a ductile material that could undergo considerable deformation before breaking, making it more suitable for iron rails. But iron was expensive to produce until Henry Cort patented
9968-412: The tender headlight bracket. The tenders initially rode on drawing x-6002 standard bogies fitted with grease-lubricated bearings. Later, drawing x-10161 bogies, still fitted with grease-lubricated bearings were substituted on some locomotives as they came in for an overhaul. A later variant was the drawing x-11183 'Timken' roller-bearing bogie fitted to the W class conversions of 1947-57 and as used under
10080-475: The time, was Liverpool and Manchester Railway , built in 1830. Steam power continued to be the dominant power system in railways around the world for more than a century. The first known electric locomotive was built in 1837 by chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen in Scotland, and it was powered by galvanic cells (batteries). Thus it was also the earliest battery-electric locomotive. Davidson later built
10192-543: The track. Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate locomotive or from individual motors in self-propelled multiple units. Most trains carry a revenue load, although non-revenue cars exist for the railway's own use, such as for maintenance-of-way purposes. The engine driver (engineer in North America) controls the locomotive or other power cars, although people movers and some rapid transits are under automatic control. Traditionally, trains are pulled using
10304-471: The transport of ore tubs to and from mines and soon became popular in Europe. Such an operation was illustrated in Germany in 1556 by Georgius Agricola in his work De re metallica . This line used "Hund" carts with unflanged wheels running on wooden planks and a vertical pin on the truck fitting into the gap between the planks to keep it going the right way. The miners called the wagons Hunde ("dogs") from
10416-404: The two lines employed some inventive working. Each morning mixed trains from the two termini met at Windsor Junction, where they were marshalled into a passenger train to Oamaru and a slower goods train. The reverse of this took place in the afternoon. Although the two branches were set up to open up country and provide transport for farmland, the freight on the line was not purely agricultural:
10528-629: The wheels on track. For example, evidence indicates that a 6 to 8.5 km long Diolkos paved trackway transported boats across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece from around 600 BC. The Diolkos was in use for over 650 years, until at least the 1st century AD. Paved trackways were also later built in Roman Egypt . In 1515, Cardinal Matthäus Lang wrote a description of the Reisszug ,
10640-622: The world in 1825, although it used both horse power and steam power on different runs. In 1829, he built the locomotive Rocket , which entered in and won the Rainhill Trials . This success led to Stephenson establishing his company as the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives for railways in Great Britain and Ireland, the United States, and much of Europe. The first public railway which used only steam locomotives, all
10752-489: The wreck of the SS Wiltshire in May 1922. The genesis of the A class originated from the construction of A class 4-6-2 No. 409 at Addington Railway Workshops in 1906. A two-cylinder simple-expansion locomotive, 409 was initially classified A to differentiate it from the four-cylinder compound A and A class locomotives, which were by and large of a similar design although built as compounds. A 409 was, in reality,
10864-512: Was a soft material that contained slag or dross . The softness and dross tended to make iron rails distort and delaminate and they lasted less than 10 years. Sometimes they lasted as little as one year under high traffic. All these developments in the production of iron eventually led to the replacement of composite wood/iron rails with superior all-iron rails. The introduction of the Bessemer process , enabling steel to be made inexpensively, led to
10976-602: Was accomplished by the distribution of weight between a number of wheels. Puffing Billy is now on display in the Science Museum in London, and is the oldest locomotive in existence. In 1814, George Stephenson , inspired by the early locomotives of Trevithick, Murray and Hedley, persuaded the manager of the Killingworth colliery where he worked to allow him to build a steam-powered machine. Stephenson played
11088-649: Was adapted for the three-cylinder G class locomotive 4-6-2 tender locomotive rebuilds of 1937. These tenders had a more substantial tender underframe and was also unique in that the body was of welded construction rather than the traditional riveted style. As such, they became known as the 'G' style tender. When the six locomotives were withdrawn in 1956, their tenders were fitted to A class locomotives. Further G type tenders were constructed later on by Addington Railway Workshops (Christchurch) and Otahuhu Workshops (Auckland) for A class locomotives whose tenders were not considered to be economically repairable. However, this
11200-514: Was built by Siemens. The tram ran on 180 volts DC, which was supplied by running rails. In 1891 the track was equipped with an overhead wire and the line was extended to Berlin-Lichterfelde West station . The Volk's Electric Railway opened in 1883 in Brighton , England. The railway is still operational, thus making it the oldest operational electric railway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram opened near Vienna in Austria. It
11312-706: Was built in 1758, later became the world's oldest operational railway (other than funiculars), albeit now in an upgraded form. In 1764, the first railway in the Americas was built in Lewiston, New York . In the late 1760s, the Coalbrookdale Company began to fix plates of cast iron to the upper surface of the wooden rails. This allowed a variation of gauge to be used. At first only balloon loops could be used for turning, but later, movable points were taken into use that allowed for switching. A system
11424-455: Was critical to the Holcim proposal as access to rail transport was crucial to transport the cement. On 2 November 2007 the case went before the Environment Court, and Judge Jeff Smith and commissioner Sheila Watson reserved their decision and the matter may not be resolved before Christmas 2007. The Commissioners granted a consent for the cement works on 11 February 2008, but this was challenged by
11536-554: Was due at least in part to the decline in wheat farming; at the start of the 20th century, thousands of acres of the crop were grown in the region, but by the 1920s it was no longer a significant commodity. After the closure of the Tokarahi Branch, freight trains ran thrice weekly to Ngapara, typically on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. They departed Oamaru at 7:30am and arrived at Ngapara at 9:40am. The return working departed Ngapara at 10:30am, reaching Oamaru at 1:30pm. By 1951 trains ran on Tuesdays and Thursdays, except for services to
11648-404: Was easily able to pull an express passenger train at speeds of 100 km/h (62 mph), or haul 700-tonne goods trains on easy grades. Along with the earlier F class , they were known as the "Maids for all work". Their work on express passenger trains was diminished by the arrival of the J class of 1939 , and K class of 1932 tender locomotives in the 1930s, and also with the introduction of
11760-548: Was introduced in which unflanged wheels ran on L-shaped metal plates, which came to be known as plateways . John Curr , a Sheffield colliery manager, invented this flanged rail in 1787, though the exact date of this is disputed. The plate rail was taken up by Benjamin Outram for wagonways serving his canals, manufacturing them at his Butterley ironworks . In 1803, William Jessop opened the Surrey Iron Railway ,
11872-489: Was light enough to not break the edge-rails track and solved the problem of adhesion by a cog-wheel using teeth cast on the side of one of the rails. Thus it was also the first rack railway . This was followed in 1813 by the locomotive Puffing Billy built by Christopher Blackett and William Hedley for the Wylam Colliery Railway, the first successful locomotive running by adhesion only. This
11984-415: Was not always the case: With 141 members of this type in New Zealand, tenders were inevitably swapped with other locomotives. For example, a locomotive undergoing overhaul might lose its good-condition tender to another with a poor-condition tender to speed up the process of out shopping the second locomotive. All tenders of the type were numbered; the number was made out of weld and was positioned just below
12096-412: Was not to prevent derailments as with the Q class 4-6-2s of 1901. Furthermore, certain engines were not fitted with ballast blocks, so their inclusion is questionable. Other cosmetic changes included fitting a large Pyle National electric headlight on top of the smokebox and replacement of the copper-capped funnels with the standard NZR "flowerpot" type. The A type boiler had a working pressure of 180psi,
12208-608: Was originally known as the Livingstone Branch , though it never progressed beyond Tokarahi to Livingstone . In early 2008 there is a proposal to reinstate the first 4.5 km of the Ngapara Branch. In the early 1870s, residents in the Waiareka Valley inland from Oamaru started petitioning for a railway connection to the coast to provide easier access to farmland and to export agricultural produce and limestone. The provincial government granted approval for
12320-541: Was restored to running condition in 1997. The locomotive is named after Sharon Lee Welch, daughter of Mainline Steam Trust principle Ian Welch. A 778 and A 795 were named David McKellar (778) and Greenvale (795) respectively by NZR in 1971 when they were overhauled for the Kingston Flyer heritage train between Lumsden and Kingston. The track now only runs between Kingston and Fairlight. Seven A class locomotives have been preserved: The W class of 1917
12432-705: Was tested on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in September of the following year, but the limited power from batteries prevented its general use. It was destroyed by railway workers, who saw it as a threat to their job security. By the middle of the nineteenth century most european countries had military uses for railways. Werner von Siemens demonstrated an electric railway in 1879 in Berlin. The world's first electric tram line, Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway , opened in Lichterfelde near Berlin , Germany, in 1881. It
12544-636: Was the first tram line in the world in regular service powered from an overhead line. Five years later, in the U.S. electric trolleys were pioneered in 1888 on the Richmond Union Passenger Railway , using equipment designed by Frank J. Sprague . The first use of electrification on a main line was on a four-mile section of the Baltimore Belt Line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in 1895 connecting
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