Well, where do I begin? I suppose at the beginning and then move through to the end, where ever that'll be.
In the beginning:
As a baby mum use to take me up in my push chair up to watch the trains going
to and from the coal mine of Rewanui. After this line closed she took my brother,
then in the push chair, and myself then walking I suppose, to the other line
to watch coal trains to and from Rapahoe, so started my affection of trains.
I always had train toys, books and stuff, some of the train books read to
my by my mum are still in my collection, and they are well read.
I remember one christmas, going down to the train room, and santa has left
a new engine and wagons, this was to continue for a long, time santa always
knew what I was after.
My first ever steam train ride was at Shantytown, I was taken out there with
my grandparents in the summer of 1989, Climax 1203 was operating at the time,
and I was terrified of this machine, little did I know that this would be
the first engine I was to be trained on when I started at Shantytown as a
boy, playing trains in 2001, more on this later. The video of the train shows
that I held the train up, tooing and froing as to whether I wanted a cab ride
or not, I wasn't with an adult of my own, just the driver and a cab full of
kids riding back down to Shantytown. This could well be the reason I have
taken a fancy to Climax's?
May 1993 was a turning point for me, as a very young railfan, I was 10 years
old, I was given my first camera, a Kodak 126, cartridge film camera. The
subject was the Cadbury Crunchie train, hauled by Ka 945, with DSC 2652 on
the rear. I wound off a whole roll of film that morning. And yes I still have
the photos somewhere, when / if they are found I'll scan them. Later in September
1993 I went on my first Railfan trip it was a one way ticket from Greymouth
to Moana behind J 1234. Then for nearly 7 years I didn't ride railfan trips
but photographed them from the roadside, which is where you get the best photos
I think! The first trip after the lull was in April 2000 went from Wellington
to Wanganui and return behind Ja 1271, this trip rekindled my passion for
riding the rails behind steam. Since then I have ridden many trains round
NZ, enjoying every moment of it. Except when damn people get in my way when
I am trying to take photos of the damn train!
Cameras
Since the early Kodak 126 camera I have had a few others, mainly point and
shoot models, but the big break came with he first SLR I brought in 2000,
I think. It was a Yashica FX3, it was a damn good camera, and I was very happy
with this piece of equipment. sadly due to a train running late and a crossing
not taking place the camera was destroyed. Yes I put the camera on the roof
of the car to wait for the train, and when it didn't come I took off with
my family, it wasn't till we were nearly home that I realised that my camera
had been left on the roof, back at the scene of the incident the camera was
laying on the road, a bit beaten up and generally stuffed. I am planning on
erecting a white cross in memory of the camera at some point.
Thanks to the good people from mums insurance they fixed my up with a 1975
Pentax KX, a really good robust camera, I have inadvertently tested the robustness
a few times. So most of the photos on this site were taken with both these
cameras.In February 2006 I purchased a new camera, this is a Minolta Dynax,
and has a 28-80mm & 80-30mm lenses I trialed this camera on a recent trip
to the North Island and
put through 12 rolls of film. Then later on in march I rolled off 7 rolls
of film in 2 days at the Burrell
Rally, which had a Burrell Scenic Showman's Engine from the UK.
After some teething troubles with the Minolta, it has turned out to be a fine
camera. The fitting of some filters, and the issues I had were halved. I still
use the camera on manual, take a light reading on auto, then flick to manual
and put in the reading, that way it can't get confused with too much sky,
which was a problem.
April 2008 was a turning point, digital was finially grasped with open arms,
after another batch of poorly processed film a Sony Alpha 100 was purchased
2nd hand, and her first trial trip was to Ashburton to photograph Ja
1260 at her first public steaming. After taking 300 or so shots all appears
to be wel, its easy to use, and takes marvellous pictures.
Interests & Work
Well I haven't met a train I didn't like, my main passion is trains in general,
I like all, steam, diesel, electric and of course railcars. Since may 2001
I have been at Shantytown, firstly as a boy volunteer, who wanted to learn
how to drive the trains there. And on 21 December 2003 I gained the first
part of this dream. (On the 28 February 2006 I gained my engine drivers ticket.
- March update) Currently I work at Shantytown, doing Gold
Panning, selling lollies to adults and beer to children (Might be other way
round), and generally doing as I'm told by the bosses.
I like seeing trains how they are meant to be seen, from out in a paddock,
on the road, and watching and photographing them, you can't recreate the past,
but its enjoyable taking photos of trains at work in New Zealand, and more
recently Australia. There is something about a steam train, they smell, look,
and are generally all the same, but railfan's flock to them, I know because
I'm one of them. Long live the steam train, in the land of the long black
cloud!
Along with trains I have a love of all things steam, be it a traction engine
threshing wheat, to a stationary engine compressing ammonia I am interested
in it. I have been known to spend days on rally grounds soaking up the atmosphere
and taking photos, also getting covered in soot and holes burnt into my clothes,
but who cares.
Model Railways
I like most railfan's have a model railway, started with a mixture of US and
Hornby stuff on a layout built for me, then later on moved to Sn3.5 (NZR),
this lasted for a while until I stumbled across the Bachmann website, they
had this thing called On30 (what?), yep On30, O scale equipment running on
HO track, making it a prototypical 2' 6" railway. That's all very well
I thought, so continued, well the model Climax was beautiful to say the least,
I just had to have multiple Climax's so now I have 2 of them for use on the
Midland Saw Milling Line. My railways fictitious purpose is to be a coal carrier
loosely based on the Charming Creek Coal Mine, north of Westport; so after
falling in love with the Krauss engines in Tasmania I brought one of these
in kit set form, its on my to do list (Good thing its on a roll of bog roll!)
Currently I 4 locos, and about 20 items of rolling stock, included in this
is log wagons, coal hoppers for the mine, gondolas, and a tank wagon. Locomotives
comprise of a 2-6-0 (NZRised), 2 x 0-4-0 diesel mechanical's, and 2 x Climax's.
Of these one of the diesels is on loan. Also recently, March, I have brought
a new 2-8-0 by Bachmann which is a superb model, and a 2nd hand C-16 2-8-0,
which is an engine.