RE: Views of Wellington - 4
Brent Efford
Tuesday, October 1, 2002 10:39 AM
The Workshops and sheds are now owned by Stagecoach, as their maintenance
and main storage facility for both trolley and diesel buses and are largely
still as in Don's photo. I was there at lunchtime today (how's that for a
segue back to 'topic'?!) on one of my regular visits to catch up with friend
and trolleybus engineer Graeme Butler and update myself re progress on the
new trolleybus project.
The prototype body at Designline is going agonisingly slowly, but in the
meantime the new electrical equipment is being installed in existing
trolleybus 264 as a test bed. Here is Graeme with the Brazillian-made
inverter, which is currently being wired up. Graeme is a real enthusiast and
a very keen design engineer - he designed some composite
aluminium/fibre-glass trolley poles 20 years ago, was snubbed by the
obstructive City Council management of the day ... but the poles are now
being tested in service and are proving a fantastic success - very difficult
to dewire. The whole fleet will probably be fitted with them. Likewise, he
has improvements to the Chinese-built trolley bases, pneumatic retrievers,
overhead fittings and many other items also in the pipeline.
The workshops, incidentally, are amazingly original, with a lot of the old
4' gauge tram track in position and the floor-level traverser tracks
likewise. The traverser itself has gone - I would love to see a photo of it.
Brent Efford
-----Original Message-----
From: Donald Galt [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, 1 October 2002 7:50 p.m.
To: [email protected]
Subject: [TramsDownUnder] Views of Wellington - 4
The fourth in a series of scans from the picture booklet "Views of
Wellington,
the Capital City of New Zealand" published by Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd,
probably
in the late 1930s or 1940s
"Evans Bay and Point Halswell"
The view is northeast from the Town Belt above Melrose, looking over
Kilbirnie
to Miramar and Port Nicholson beyond, with the snow-capped Tararuas in the
distance.
Today's shoreline is far north of the one we see here, which is just north
of
what is now Rongotai Road. The location of the power plant at Kemp Point is
now
well inland.
"What's this doing in a tram list?" I hear you muttering. Well, look at the
large building just right of centre. That's the Kilbirnie Depot and
Workshops,
largest of all WCCT installations.
Route 2 via the Hataitai Tunnel and route 3 coming down Crawford Road from
Newtown converged behind the hill at far left and continued to the northwest
corner of the shops. There the line to Lyall Bay turned south along Onepu
Road,
visible in front of the buildings. Services to Miramar and Seatoun went east
in
Coutts Street on the north side of the installation, continuing past
Rongotai
College (whose grounds can be seen on the right margin) and along Broadway.
Expansion of the airport at Rongotai severed the Coutts Street - Broadway
route
and killed the Miramar and Seatoun trams. Present-day trolleybuses take a
route
approximately following the shoreline in this picture.
A couple of other pictures from this book might be of interest to some, but
this is the last one that could possibly qualify as on-topic.
Don Galt
Seattle USA
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and main storage facility for both trolley and diesel buses and are largely
still as in Don's photo. I was there at lunchtime today (how's that for a
segue back to 'topic'?!) on one of my regular visits to catch up with friend
and trolleybus engineer Graeme Butler and update myself re progress on the
new trolleybus project.
The prototype body at Designline is going agonisingly slowly, but in the
meantime the new electrical equipment is being installed in existing
trolleybus 264 as a test bed. Here is Graeme with the Brazillian-made
inverter, which is currently being wired up. Graeme is a real enthusiast and
a very keen design engineer - he designed some composite
aluminium/fibre-glass trolley poles 20 years ago, was snubbed by the
obstructive City Council management of the day ... but the poles are now
being tested in service and are proving a fantastic success - very difficult
to dewire. The whole fleet will probably be fitted with them. Likewise, he
has improvements to the Chinese-built trolley bases, pneumatic retrievers,
overhead fittings and many other items also in the pipeline.
The workshops, incidentally, are amazingly original, with a lot of the old
4' gauge tram track in position and the floor-level traverser tracks
likewise. The traverser itself has gone - I would love to see a photo of it.
Brent Efford
-----Original Message-----
From: Donald Galt [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, 1 October 2002 7:50 p.m.
To: [email protected]
Subject: [TramsDownUnder] Views of Wellington - 4
The fourth in a series of scans from the picture booklet "Views of
Wellington,
the Capital City of New Zealand" published by Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd,
probably
in the late 1930s or 1940s
"Evans Bay and Point Halswell"
The view is northeast from the Town Belt above Melrose, looking over
Kilbirnie
to Miramar and Port Nicholson beyond, with the snow-capped Tararuas in the
distance.
Today's shoreline is far north of the one we see here, which is just north
of
what is now Rongotai Road. The location of the power plant at Kemp Point is
now
well inland.
"What's this doing in a tram list?" I hear you muttering. Well, look at the
large building just right of centre. That's the Kilbirnie Depot and
Workshops,
largest of all WCCT installations.
Route 2 via the Hataitai Tunnel and route 3 coming down Crawford Road from
Newtown converged behind the hill at far left and continued to the northwest
corner of the shops. There the line to Lyall Bay turned south along Onepu
Road,
visible in front of the buildings. Services to Miramar and Seatoun went east
in
Coutts Street on the north side of the installation, continuing past
Rongotai
College (whose grounds can be seen on the right margin) and along Broadway.
Expansion of the airport at Rongotai severed the Coutts Street - Broadway
route
and killed the Miramar and Seatoun trams. Present-day trolleybuses take a
route
approximately following the shoreline in this picture.
A couple of other pictures from this book might be of interest to some, but
this is the last one that could possibly qualify as on-topic.
Don Galt
Seattle USA
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