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The Hutt Valley Model Engineering Society Inc
Marine Parade, Petone, Wellington, New
Zealand
2017
Steaming Bay Replacement
The steaming bays have been in
use for a number of years and as the club is very near the
coast the ravages of sat air and time had taken their toll.
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The HVMES track layout
The steaming bays are in the lower left corner
adjacent to the club house.
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The state of the steaming bays
As its name implies the "Beach Railway" is very close
to Wellington harbour. in fact the sea is just beyond
the hedgerow at the far side of the track. The salt
laden atmosphere isn't the best for a steel structure,
even though it is had been fully galvanized when
originally constructed.
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Another view of the state of decay.
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And the worst of it with support
columns fully rusted through
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The plan was to replace all the defective items, like
the rusted through columns and reuse the existing rail
sections. We had approached Steam and Sand, based in
Seaview, for a quote for sandblasting all the sections
to be reused. They offered to do the work free of
charge, for which we were extremely grateful. It helped
immensely with the project budget. Once sand blasted we
used Perrys to galvanize all the components before we
installed them. Logistics were very easy as the Steam
and Sand and Perry's premises in Seaview are next door
to each other
In order to minimise any possible disruption in track
running all the new components were fabricated off site
in club members workshops. All the new steel was
purchased from Asmus, just around the corner from the
club. They cut all the sections to size for us so it was
really only a case of drilling holes and welding the
various parts together. Work on site was limited to
cutting the support columns to their final length and
welding the top plates. securing the columns to the
ground with ground anchors and installing the rail
sections onto the columns.
We had decided to remove bay 7 completely, it was
very difficult to line a vehicle up in the limited space
between it and the boundary posts near the road. The
rail section from bay 7 was used to extend bay 2
alongside the already extended bay 1.
The down ramp linking the bays to the tracks was also in
a sorry state. It was completely disassembled, sand
blasted by Steam a Sand and re-galvanized by Perry's and
then reassembled on site.
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One other problem we had was the distorted
track for the swing arm. There was a risk that the
rollers could come off the track. It had never happened,
but there was a risk of it happening in the future. |
The swing arm rail was replaced with a double rail
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Nearing completion
You will notice the red rails. One of
the problems with the original steaming bays was the
inner rails for 5" and 3.5" gauges. They obstructed
dropping of fires for the larger gauges so we
removed the inner rails in one section. These are
replaced by drop in rails when a 5"or 3.5" gauge loco
is using the bay.
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Work completed
You will notice that the
rail for the wing arm extends beyond bay 6 and
even beyond where bay 7 had been located. The
intention being that given the extra space a vehicle
could back up to the swing arm and unload a loco
directly onto the swing arm. It also provided vehicle
access to the clubhouse door. Something that hadn't
been possible in the past.
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John points to the "Golden Nut"
signifying the completion of the project.
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This page is maintained by HVMES.
Last updated: Sept 2022
Pages and content copyright © 1995-2022
HVMES, Wellington, New Zealand. All rights reserved.
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