Steamtrain to Whangarei

On Saturday, CDH celebrated his old man day. He does volunteer work for Mainline steam – a company in Auckland who restores and runs steam trains on the main NZ lines. They’d organised a ride from Auckland to Whangarei (up north) and back. KiwiRail has been doing lots of work and spending lots of money upgrading the Western Auckland lines (out where we live), and this steam train was the first to travel through the new rail trench.

Our gorgeous steam engine

Now, to give you folks in first world countries an idea what it’s like getting around New Zealand. The line they ran the steam train on is a freight line – passenger trains don’t even go from Auckland – Whangarei. If we were to drive to Whangarei from our house, it would take around 2 hours. Guess how long it takes on a steam train?

Seven.

Yep. Seven. The reason – the track is in such bad condition the . If you are ever thinking of coming to NZ and expecting to navigate this country by ease with public transport, THINK AGAIN. Rent a car. Hitchhike, or be prepared to add another two weeks travelling time to any trip you make. We’re on narrow gauge track here, which means – slow trains, poorly maintained track, and a schedule which is more conceptual than actual reality.

Our steam locomotive – the NZR 4-8-2 J Class (4-8-2 refers to the layout of the wheels) – were engineered to follow the head-load K-class monsters, as a lighter-axle train was needed for the secondary tracks. She was built in Scotland, and managed to elude several German U-boats on her trip over here (with 39 of her brothers and sisters) to come into use in NZ in the 1940s. She’s capable of over 60mph with a 300-ton express train, but because of the speed restrictions on the track, they couldn’t push her nearly that hard.

View from the train.

Anyway, enough train geekery. We hop on the train at 7:30am, and settle into our seats for the day. After a hearty train breakfast (cheese, ham, tomato, pineapple toasties), we settle in to enjoy the view, play a few games of naked Greek Men cards (I won), a few games of travel chess (I lost), read our books (I finished Jasper FForde’s “Shades of Grey” which I am insanely jealous I, as a person with achromotopsia, didn’t write.) and talked to more train geeks. I made a cake for CDH to share with the crew, which went down a mighty treat.

Cheese, tomato, pineapple toastie. Breakfast of train geeks.

They stopped the train regularly for photo stops, where they let everyone out, haul the train up the line, and drive it past so everyone can take photos. Most of my photos came up rubbish.

A little NZ countryside for y'all.

View from steamtrain, just past Welsford

Snapped by CDH

We did practically nothing in Whangarei, as there is NOTHING to do. We did find a sweet shop, and wandered around the port and talked about piratical adventures we would have on the boats, and found some tacky sourviner shops, one of which had Puffer Fish on the wall, which you could buy and hang from your ceiling, if you’re that way inclined.

I love the diverse amount of geekage in the world. I’m a metal geek. On Saturday, I met some hardcore train geeks. As in, they sat on the train with GPS and maps, timing the train’s route. They brought expensive camera equipment to take pictures of the train. They have train geek lingo for talking about trains. It was really quite an eye opener.

Whangarei sweet shop

Having held one of these bastards in the ocean, I would hate to have them hanging on the wall. Look how pissed off they look!

I loved all their long-suffering wives, who held maps and made toasted sandwiches, and lugged their camera equipment around while they geeked out.

So yeah, that was my weekend. What did you get up to? I’m sorry posting’s been light over here – I’ve been distracted by work and learning Eluveitie and Einsiferum songs on the tin whistle.

Going off the rails … \m/