The germ of the Pahiatua Railcar Society first surfaced way back over 30 years ago in early 1991 in a casual conversation between myself and a friend, Warrick Greaves, during a wind-up function for the Pahiatua 1990 Celebrations Committee, when I happened to remark, "Well, that was a busy time – what shall we do next?"
His reply was, "I think we should have a go at restoring a railcar." Turned out he was talking about a "Fiat" or "Drewry Twinset", because he had travelled daily on one from Mangamaire to Masterton, where he had attended a secondary school.
"Well, you are out of luck," I replied. "They have all been scrapped."
Not quite, as it later turned out.
A bit later the same night, I said to him, "How keen are you to do that?" "Pretty keen," was his reply. So, I said to him, "Well, there is another different one we might be able to get," and started talking about RM5 (Mahuhu), the only surviving Wairarapa-class railcar.
After some groundwork, we formed what was originally called the Pahiatua Railcar Preservation Society Inc at a well-attended meeting on February 10, 1992, and signed up for a lease on RM5 later that year. At the same time, we commenced what later became a complete takeover of the Pahiatua Railway Station precinct.
We enlisted the support of well-known restorers Paul Gleeson and Malcolm Phillips and other members of their established restoration team. Paul masterminded the collection and transport to Pahiatua of RM5 and the restoration began.
At first, it was stored in the old railway goods shed, but that proved unsuitable, so a lot of weather-dependent work took place out in the open. That led to raising finances and the construction of a dedicated workshop down near the railway crossing, and at the same time, we obtained a "standard-class" railcar.
RM31 Tokomaru with the team after being successful in getting certified for mainline running in 2011.
This was RM31 Tokomaru, from well-known enthusiast John Murphy, which had spent 20 years in the still-extant long shed just north of the Opaki railway overbridge along with truckloads of spares he had acquired.
RM5 and RM31 were both moved into the new shed. About this time, the original team drifted away, until Bernard Watson from Tokomaru and Graham Gordon of Masterton took over the RM5 rebuild, eventually going on to restore it to "as new condition".
Since then, we have steadily expanded over time, with the ex-Pahiatua County Council 16-bay truck shed being moved on-site over an existing siding track and gradually rebuilt with a second railway track, fully clad and with large doors. A concrete floor was built in stages, the last one scheduled for completion by this Christmas.
Along the way we acquired the remains of two more railcars, RM121 and RM133, examples of the thought-to-be-extinct Drewry Twinset (Fiat class). A long-term project to rebuild an example of this class is slowly proceeding. Also acquired was a second example of standard-class RM34 Tainui.
In 2020, we were approached by KiwiRail to purchase all three of the withdrawn Silver Fern railcars and eventually did so, along with what we believe was most of the inventory of their new spares.
These arrived in four containers and what became an additional seven truckloads of spares. What's more, they delivered them to us from Christchurch. We had to build a new secure yard and other facilities.
Needless to say, there was some haggling over the price, but it was fairly evident they wanted us to have them to overhaul and operate into the future, and knew we were well-proven operators.
In short, we were probably "the only game in town", which is a considerable honour for Pahiatua and the Tararua District. In that regard, we have always had good support from the Tararua District Council, its staff, and especially the Woodville i-Site along with the Bush Telegraph, for which we are most grateful.
So now we have, in effect, seven railcars from the heyday of the NZ Railways railcar era. Along the way we have built more tracks, acquired four diesel shunters and a variety of wagons, lots of equipment, and a wealth of manuals, along with a great deal of experience restoring (and to a limited extent, operating) one of them on the mainline.
To do this, we managed to obtain a mainline running licence in 2011 and have operated as far north as Helensville, Morrinsville, New Plymouth, Wanganui, Napier, and south to Wellington. That included a North Island tour for an Australian operator, and we would have done more but for Covid issues. We are currently talking to them and another tour company about future possibilities.
The public is invited to attend our open day on Saturday, December 3, when we will have three of our railcars operating and the rest on display, along with access to the station and our two workshops, with refreshments and souvenirs available.
