The Plains Vintage Railway & Historical Museum

Wow, so I'm here at The Plains Vintage Railway & Historical Museum, which is in the Tinwald Domain. It's pretty cool because it's not just a railway, but also a recreated historic village. The railway itself, they call it The Plains Railway, runs for about three kilometers on what used to be part of the Mount Somers Branch line. They've got all these preserved and restored locomotives and old rolling stock that were once part of New Zealand's national railway. And the village really gives you a sense of what life was like back in New Zealand's pioneering days.

Apparently, the Ashburton Railway & Preservation Society started this whole thing back in 1971. Their big goal was to buy a section of that old Mt Somers Branch railway so they could run restored locomotives and also save a bunch of old farm machinery that was disappearing from the area. They started collecting railway stuff, agricultural items, and other local historical pieces, and even moved some existing buildings here, like a cottage, a church, and a railway station, which is pretty neat.

You know, the most famous story here is probably about K 88. It's a locomotive that was actually pulled out of the Ōreti River in 1974 from the Branxholme Locomotive Dump. It was brought here in July of that year and was fully restored by 1982. That recovery really set a trend, and other enthusiasts started pulling more locomotives out of the river, including two other K-class engines. One of them, K 94, is actually here too, though it’s in an unrestored state. It’s a good way to see just how much work went into K 88!

There was even this K 88 Trust Board that formed in 1995 with the goal of restoring K 88 to working condition, and maybe K 94 too. They leased the locomotives, bought a former supermarket for a restoration base, and raised funds. K 88 had a condemned boiler from 1987 and a rusted-out tender tank. They built a new tender tank in 1997 and a new boiler, which cost a pretty penny – $151,000! The new boiler was fitted in 2000, and K 88 was first steamed in November 2001, then recommissioned in March 2002. It's pretty famous; it hauled the first intercity express between Christchurch and Dunedin, was one of the original Kingston Flyer locomotives, and is the oldest ex-NZR tender locomotive in New Zealand. Sadly, K 94's restoration never really took off, and it just sits behind the carriage shed now.

One really sad thing happened here in 2015 – there was an arson attack. The old workshop building burned down, destroying most of the tools and equipment inside. Five fire engines were here to put it out. The locomotive shed next to it was damaged but has been repaired. It’s crazy to think about.