Davidson Bush Locomotive
While I was driving down Highway 6 on my way to Nelson, I passed thru a section in-between Kamaka and Ngahere, where I found this entire steam train abandoned on the side of the road!!! just sitting there. So yk I had to go back there and have a look.
Anyway heres what I found bc I think its pretty cool
It was originally built by some foundry (G&D Davidson) in Hokitika (60ks away, a solid 50min drive from where it is now) and it was the 25th out of only 26 built in 1907–1925.
After being built, it worked at 4 diffrent places from around 1920 to 1942, hauling logs n timber.
Then it was used to haul logs out of the bush near Kamaka, to the ol' Kamaka Mill, and also to cart timber to Kamaka railway station.
After it was used and abused, it was retired (trashed) as trucks replaced engines like this, and it was quickly abandoned, stripped for parts, and was left to rot back into the ground and forest. It basically ended up just sitting on the siding for 40+ years rusting, hidden by bush that swallowed it back.
Then 1974 comes around and some guy called Jim Staton (a NZFS worker, whatever the hell that is) rediscovers it and embarks on a mission to restore it and bring it back to life! He found the boiler (that was for some reason, found 4ks away?!?!), as well as all the other parts for it that got nicked. Then he put it all back together and mr choo choo was re-born! (I later found out boilers were reused from old NZ Railways trains all the time, and that boiler parts had value / were moved around a lot. So explains y the train ended up ina hundred different pieces all around the west coast). Anyways, after Jim had his fun, he lost interest and it was abandoned again..
Then in 2001 it was fully restored again by Gray Brothers Engineering in Greymouth. It was dismantled, again, new parts were made, blasted, zinc-coated and the whole rig was repainted to look all nice spick and span.
Not sure what the point of all of that was for??. Just to abandon it again on the side of the road?! :| it still looks like an abandoned wreck.
hey-ho, now its a DOC-managed picnic/heritage site, so I guess it's worth it. Now I can eat my pie while sitting ontop of a train! :D
The last surviving Davidson locomotive, on its "original working site".
After digging up the history about this thing when I got back, it unraveled into the most confusing story ever!
Who finds an abandoned train wreck (wasn't even a wreck at that point, was just a rotting steel frame w some wheels on it in the sticks) deep in the nz bush, goes "oh heck yeah! I'll restore this" goes thru the trouble of getting it out of the bush to begin with, finding all the parts for it that had been scattered all up and down the country. Then actually restores it, just to abandoned again for another 27 yrs. Then if that wasn't enough, a whole ass company finds it, strips it down and fully restores it, again, then gives it to DOC to be put on display or summin, and ofc they just put it back on the side of the road, prolly where it was originally abandoned, left to rot and be abandoned again. :|
I wish ppl did this with cars instead. that'd be way cooler
If I found an abandoned train in the forest, I'd prolly carve my name into it, take some pics, and then think about how it got there, what it was / did, maybe make up a cool story in my head that it was used in the war to covertly smuggle ammunition and tanks across the country.
I'd never ever think to drag it out the forest, strip it down three times, restore it two times, abandoned it another two or three times, and then build a whole lay-by display to "leave it in its final resting place" aka officially abandoned it for good.
anyways. I like the train. I don't hate it or anything. Idk y they went thru all of that when they could've just built a new train to do their train activities in.
100 likes n ill carve my name into mr choo choo.
Do not carve your name in Mr Choo choo!!