May Morn Estates Tramway

Barclay 0-4-4-0T steam locomotive 'Joan'

Trestle bridge with 2 supports over the Hutt River near Te Marua

Trestle bridge with 8 pillars next to the Hutt River at Te Marua

Gauge :

3½ feet = 1067 mm

Legend

		by Featherston
		NZR train station Mangaroa
		to Upper Hutt
		Transition to the NZR
		Sawmill on MacLaren Street in Mangaroa
		Trestle Bridge next to the Hutt River at Te Marua
		Trestle Bridge over the Hutt River at Te Marua
		Turn into the Akatarawa Forest
		Railroad tracks in the Akatarawa Forest

The May Morn Estates Tramway was a forest railroad at Mangaroa that crossed the Hutt River at Te Marua near Upper Hutt on New Zealand's North Island . The company was founded in 1912 and operated its sawmill from at least 1914 to 1915.

history

The forest railway with a track width of 3 feet 6 inches (1067 mm) led by a large steam-powered sawmill at the end of today's MacLaren Street in Mangaroa in the Akatarawa Forest , where they crossed the Hutt River at Te Marua on two adjacent wooden trestle bridges . The bridges were destroyed by floods in 1939.

May Morn Estates (NZ) Ltd was a London based company of investors. They wanted to cut down the Akatarawa Forest and convert it into pastureland and build a settlement. There were even long-term plans to extend the forest railway to the North Island Main Trunk Railway at Otaki . The sawmill operated for only one year from 1914 to 1915. It was closed on August 5, 1915 after the outbreak of World War I , which made it impossible to wire the operating costs from London to New Zealand. As a result, gullible British investors lost all of their investments (around € 8.5 million, adjusted for inflation in 2017).

From 1913 onwards, the population worried about the deforestation of the forest and the silting up of the Hutt River at the bridge. The aim was to nationalize the May Morn Estate into. In 1940 the Minister of Landscapes and State Forests commissioned Tudor Atkinson, a lawyer and co-founder of the company. The minister assumed "scoundrelly, thieving concerns" and said the government will not help citizens digging their own graves. In 1950, Arthur Seed, the general manager of the sawmill, tried to sell the land for an acceptable price. Its asking price was based on the deforestation, but state officials believed it was only suitable for landscape conservation.

locomotive

The locomotive was built in 1912 by Andrew Barclay Sons & Co. in Kilmarnock , Scotland as the BB class. It was an improved Meyer design with a 0-4-4-0T axle sequence and a 3 foot 6 inch (1067 mm) track. The factory number was 1299. 'Joan' was shipped by the manufacturer on October 22nd, 1912. It had four cylinders with 7 × 12 inches (180 × 300 mm) bore × stroke and eight drive wheels with 27 inches (690 mm). When loaded with water and coal, it weighed 24 tons and had a boiler pressure of 180 psi (12 bar).

Web links

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b Brian Pearce: Barclay 0-4-4-0T steam locomotive 'Joan'; owned by May Morn Estates (NZ) Ltd. Upper Hutt Public Library Heritage Collections. Retrieved July 13, 2018.
↑ ^a ^b ^c David Castle: Bush tramway bridge, crossing the Hutt River at Te Marua. Upper Hutt Public Library Heritage Collections. Retrieved July 13, 2018.
^ Parliamentary Debates. Volume 164, New Zealand, Parliament, 1913, p. 110.

-41.079695 175.143594Coordinates: 41 ° 4 ′ 46.9 ″ S , 175 ° 8 ′ 36.9 ″ O

[Pearce-1] A ^b Brian Pearce: Barclay 0-4-4-0T steam locomotive 'Joan'; owned by May Morn Estates (NZ) Ltd. Upper Hutt Public Library Heritage Collections. Retrieved July 13, 2018.

[Castle-2] David Castle: Bush tramway bridge, crossing the Hutt River at Te Marua. Upper Hutt Public Library Heritage Collections. Retrieved July 13, 2018.

[3] Parliamentary Debates. Volume 164, New Zealand, Parliament, 1913, p. 110.