• Hi all and welcome to TheWoodHaven2 brought into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming! We all have Alasdair to thank for the vast bulk of the heavy lifting to get us here, no more so than me because he's taken away a huge burden of responsibility from my shoulders and brought us to this new shiny home, with all your previous content (hopefully) still intact! Please peruse and feed back. There is still plenty to do, like changing the colour scheme, adding the banner graphic, tweaking the odd setting here and there so I have added a new thread in the 'Technical Issues, Bugs and Feature Requests' forum for you to add any issues you find, any missing settings or just anything you'd like to see added/removed from the feature set that Xenforo offers. We will get to everything over the coming weeks so please be patient, but add anything at all to the thread I mention above and we promise to get to them over the next few days/weeks/months. In the meantime, please enjoy!

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  1. V

    Wellington & Manawatu Railway.

    Here are some photos of the first carriage - WMR No.48 - arriving at the southern terminus of the 1.5km Silver Stream Railway, in Upper Hutt, Wellington region. Pulling into Reynolds Bach Drive, about 100m from McKirdy Station at the south end of the Silver Stream Railway. Photo GJ McClare...
  2. V

    Wellington & Manawatu Railway.

    Interesting project, and fast work. But with an emphasis on being a commercial operation, with all the modifications that brings. Our project is to try to restore these to as close to original appearance as possible. We're even having BSW bolts made, and using NOS slotted screws (when we can...
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    Nervous about Surgeon

    These were built in Thordon, Wellington (New Zealand), structurally identical to a previous batch of carriages built by Jackson & Sharp, of Delaware, USA. So lets see if this works as a link to the new thread...
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    Development of the Wadkin RB Surface Planer.

    Indeed. That's excellent. As the first machine of this batch to show up, it allows me to identify the features of that batch (always assuming the the whole batch has the same features). I can now tell that my un-tagged RB is not from this batch as is has the larger cast-iron, 5-spoke...
  5. V

    Wellington & Manawatu Railway.

    It's just gone midnight here, into Saturday morning. Time for bed (beyond time for bed really). I'm not sure when I'll get back to this, but here are some teaser photos. The first shows a string of former WMR carriages in Auckland Station car yard in March, 1949. The 2nd, 3rd and 5th (from...
  6. V

    Wellington & Manawatu Railway.

    The New Zealand Railway & Locomotive Society. The society had its origins in 1944 and by the 1960s had small branches around the country. The Hawkes Bay branch bought former WMR carriage #48 (the first of the second batch of locally built carriages) for their clubrooms. It was located at Clive...
  7. V

    Wellington & Manawatu Railway.

    More background. In the year after it acquired the WMR, the NZGR (New Zealand Government Railways) absorbed the carriages into it's fleet. The first modifications included the removal of electric lights (powered by batteries in the guards van), and their replacement with gas lighting (NZGR...
  8. V

    Wellington & Manawatu Railway.

    Some background: During the 1870s New Zealand Government Railways was constructing a railway line out of the capital, Wellington, through the Hutt Valley to the Wairarapa, and hence towards Napier, Palmerston North, and other points north. Construction also began on a second railway north, this...
  9. V

    Wellington & Manawatu Railway.

    I mentioned in another thread that I'm involved in a project to restore some old railway carriages. There seems to be some interest, so rather than continue to hijack that thread, I've started this one. I'm 70 years old and worked for New Zealand Railways (through numerous name changes to the...
  10. V

    Nervous about Surgeon

    Interesting enough for me to start a thread on the subject? Cheers, Vann.
  11. V

    Nervous about Surgeon

    I guess this thread started by talking about medical procedures - so maybe the mention of an "undertaker" isn't off topic... ;) Cheers, Vann.
  12. V

    Nervous about Surgeon

    There are six of us on a good day. One is a railway boilermaker, who retrained as a fitter when boilermaking became less in demand. He does welding when needed, but has also been helping on the lathe. One is doing most of the work on assembling the bogies. One's a chippy. Another assists with...
  13. V

    Nervous about Surgeon

    Well, at the current rate of progress (one day of work per week) I'll have to live to 120 years of age 😟. But with luck I'll see out the restoration of the second carriage (but not the third). Cheers, Vann.
  14. V

    Nervous about Surgeon

    Almost all of my maternal aunts and uncles, and mum, suffered mini-strokes, resulting in dementia. I believe (and hope) that the operation has helped me step off that path, and asprin and statins will keep me off. At the moment I'm fine, active, fit, and as healthy as a 70 year old could hope...
  15. V

    Nervous about Surgeon

    Two years ago a CT scan showed I had a restriction in my carotid arteries, which had caused a mini-stroke or two (so mini I never felt them). An MRi scan 3 weeks later showed I'd had a further mini-stroke. I had another test the following Friday morning at the local hospital and before I'd left...
  16. V

    Development of the Wadkin RB Surface Planer.

    To be honest, I'd like to see more photos of your RB (this is an RB thread after all ;)), particularly of the rear (showing the switchgear door) and of the On/Off pushbuttons (at 45 degrees to the front of the machine). One reason I ask this, is that I have a very similar RB that's missing it's...
  17. V

    Development of the Wadkin RB Surface Planer.

    From somewhere after 1936, Wadkin painted their machines in a mid-grey - roughly RAL 7011. But your 1934 and 1936 machines would have been a darker grey. The nearest I can find is a Resene (local NZ brand) colour "Shark". In the photo below is a cavity that was completely hidden from light for...
  18. V

    Development of the Wadkin RB Surface Planer.

    Yes they do. Unfortunately my contact, with access to them, has now retired. Cheers, Vann.
  19. V

    Development of the Wadkin RB Surface Planer.

    Here's something that might interest you Wolf - a photo of the page from the test book for your RB. There's not a lot of information there, but it tells you it was run for 6 hours as part of the pass out testing - and that it was tested, and passed, on 13th May, 1947 (at least I think it says...
  20. V

    Development of the Wadkin RB Surface Planer.

    Thanks for the photos Wolf. JQ 114, Test No. 3091. PKA 273, Test No. 4908. RB 540, Test No. 28183. Dating these early "Wadkin & Co." tags can be tricky, as the date is derived from the test number. There were three different test number sequences used before the change of name to "Wadkin Ltd"...
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