Miranui Flax Mill opened in 1907, and had an underpass under the Wellington & Manawatu's line north of Shannon. Flaxmilling has a fascinating history in its own right.
Of course the part that's most interesting to me is the tramway that was built along with the mill:
A unique feature of the mill was the 3ft gauge tramway which ran from the mill three and a half miles into the swamp. A small five ton steam locomotive was bought from Bagnall and Co of England in 1907 to haul the specially built flax wagons. Unfortunately even this tiny machine proved too heavy for the tracks across the swamps and it was sold to work later on bush tramways on the Waitakere coast near Auckland and near Raetihi in the central North Island. Teams of horses therefore took over on the flax tramway from 1910.
I've been thinking about how to model this in HO scale (1:87), it seems HOe (9mm track, aka N gauge) is the way to go. Technically HOe is for 2.5ft gauge railways, so modelers licence will be exercised...
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| Miranui's Bagnall locomotive. |
Pic of the Christchurch loco here:
Plans were published in the October 1996 NZ Model Railway Journal.
Picture from behind
Loaded flax train
Narrow Planet has builders plates.
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