Bryan Blanchard has sent more images through, and said I can share them here (thanks again, Bryan, you're making my day!). Again, anyone is welcome to email me or add a comment with more info and corrections. While I love trams, I'm certainly not an expert (but I love to learn). Information below from Bryan's email.
Above and below. Hills, tram 24 waiting restoration & ex-Dunedin, Mornington cable car 111 under restoration.
Above and below. Ex-Invercargill Birney tram under restoration in the tram barn. A Birney image from Trams Down Under, and article from Stuff.co.nz on the No. 15.
Above: The Beast - 5w with tram used in the city circle = W2 244 in the village. Below, on the Ferrymead tramway line.
Below: Tram 152 & trailer 115 normally used on the city circle.
Also, here are Bryan's photos of the restoration work being undertaken to repair the tramlines after the recent earthquakes. Quoting from his email:
This is some of the work we were doing. We worked in with the Ferrymead gang - Cleaning the liquefaction sand of the track area ( all fall stuff to shift )- straightening the sleepers in the track bed that had moved & rebalasting them & also with the shaking of the earthquake, a number of the sleepers needed the ballast repacked round them. The sleepers that had to be straighten, had to have the attaching screws, locking the plates that hold the rail line in place, loosened, straighten up & screws tighten up again, locking the attaching plates onto the railway line. The works tram = THE BEAST, fleet No. 5w supplied the power/air needed to run the compressor to operate the air gun.
Update:
In answer to Sandy's question below about damage to Ferrymead from the Canterbury quakes, here's Bryan's response and another photo from his collection:
"Only real track damage I saw was on Ferrymead railways as seen on one of their sidings."
Ferrymead is AWESOME! I was last there just over a year ago and hadn't been for about 20 years. It's been rather damaged by the earthquakes i heard. Maybe Bryan can give us more details on that. My daughter works near Ferrymead Historic Park [she's currently on maternity leave though] and the floors of where she works have been pushed up so high through earthquakes, that if she were to walk on it her head would touch the ceiling apparently and she's only about 5ft 4ish :o/
ReplyDeleteHere's a set of photos on flickr from my previous visit...lots of workshop shots in there also :D
Cheers
Sandy
Ferrymead, like Lyttleton, was on my list of possible places to visit in 2007, but -- (sigh) -- I didn't get to do so. If the NZ Federation of Historical Societies have another South Island conference some year, and if it's anywhere in Canterbury, and if I can afford to actually go ... I'm going to see Ferrymead. Absolutely for sure. Right now, it's fingers crossed.
ReplyDeleteI'll email Bryan and ask if he has further details as to how Ferrymead has fared.
Very pleasing to see the tram line being repaired. Some might think it should be low on the priority list, but I disagree. Chch needs to regain its identity.
ReplyDeleteHear, hear. I loved those trams in the city. A two-day pass was a ticket to utter coolness.
ReplyDelete