150 blingin' years of rail in NZ!

Today, at Wellington Railway Station, there was an exhibition celebrating 150 years of rail in New Zealand. I use a train most days of the week, and who doesn't love a bit of rail history? Psycho killers, that's who.

We started by travelling in on the Matangi, a short but fckn picturesque ride that I take every day to work.

First up was a DA class diesel-electric loco:



The best thing about this? I got to look under the rocker cover at the massive valvegear:



...AND THEY STARTED THE BUGGER UP. Heaven.

The kids also sat in the driver's seat, but who cares about that?





Next up was a JA Class steam guy:



Old carriages next. Check out the pressed tin ceiling and the cool light fittings:



Coupla business twerps on their way to the provinces to inspect the raw materials:



Some sort of wheel conrod component on another steam engine. I dunno the details, sorry:



Ah right yep, the previous shot is from this guy:



Imagine this bongoloid in charge of that much tonnage:



Or worse, THIS bongoloid:



HELVETICA SCENARIO:



Rach and Ella being told how this engine was changed from coal- to oil-fired. Betty looks for the ignition key:



A more different OLDER old carriage with velvet seats:



"Angelic" (note scare quotes):



You know how, at school, you ironed those badge things with your name on into your undies, so people who know where they belonged if you lost them? They do something similar with trains:



Another bloody businessman:



Ever wondered why you see bugger-all sludge on trains? Here's why:



The new tourist carriages are great, but a bit of a kick in the face for the now-closed Hillside Workshops in Dunners, as they were the last things they built:



Please click for big on this next one to see a large number of instances of the word "cock", and the phrase "cock end":



Most people seem to fixate on the codpiece in this picture. How about you?



THAT'S ENOUGH TRAINS UNTIL MONDAY.

Whanganui RA RA RA

Went skiing the other weekend; the mountain was shut, so we did a road trip from Ohakune to Whanganui instead.

We passed the Ratana Church, just before Raetihi:



then drove through some quite serious rain to Whanganui. Here's the start of the trip in timelapse:



They were having a market when we got there (it was a Saturday) - they had Jesters Pies, Raku pottery that you decorate and then they fire in front of you, wicked Cornish pasties - it was great!

The riverbank looks a lot different to the last time I was there about eight years ago. There's a nice boardwalk/wharf, and a whole lot of sculptures like these:





There's a tram museum, which we didn't really look at, but it had a sweet partially derelict Austin tramline maintenance truck outside:



About every third building in the main street has a heritage plaque on it. Here's a few pictures which give you an idea of why this is:







I even managed to drag the people I was with to the Serjeant Gallery:



There was a really interesting show on about the Wanganui Computer.

No visit to Whanganui is complete without a trip up the Durie Hill Memorial Tower:



It was phenomenally windy, and some of us made ourselves feel a bit chunderous by running back down the tower.

The top of the earth elevator is next to the tower, so Blair and I went down it, then demonstrated the amazing acoustics of the tunnel at the bottom by playing Whitesnake and Nirvana on our phones, from opposite ends of the tunnel:



We had some fairly mediocre food at the café attached to the Information Centre, but then went upstairs to look at the gallery full of glasswork. All the pieces were from the Wanganui Glass Festival, and they were all amazing:











This one was made out of the glass from old CRT televisions:















The riverbank pencils farewelled us as we left:



..and the world's most stupid-yet-friendly heater welcomed us back to Ohakune: