Pahiatua Railcar Society
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The Pahiatua Railcar Society (PRS) is a society located in Pahiatua, New Zealand, dedicated to the restoration of railcars and other locomotives and rolling stock formerly operated by the New Zealand Railways Department. It is notable for possessing the sole remaining examples of the RM class 88 seater and Wairarapa railcars.
[edit] Infrastructure
The PRS is based at Pahiatua's railway station on the Wairarapa Line and has preserved the station building, goods shed, and surrounds. The railway station is a wooden structure that dates from 1971 and was built to replace a former building from 1897 that had been demolished. It is one of the last wooden stations built by the New Zealand Railways Department and one of the few remaining examples of its type. The goods shed dates from 1897 and is one of the larger rural goods sheds to survive in New Zealand. The PRS has added its own structures to the station precinct: a railcar shed for storage and restoration work, and another shed to provide shelter for the Society's rolling stock.
[edit] Rolling stock
The PRS possesses the following locomotives and railcars:
- RM 5 (Wairarapa class)
- RM 31 (Standard class)
- RM 133 (88 seater class)
- TR 36
- TR 160
- PWD D 597
RM 31 is presently the Society's only operating railcar and is one of four preserved railcars of the Standard class. The PRS is actively restoring RM 5, which has had to largely be rebuilt due to its rotten wooden frame, and RM 133. Parts of RM 119 and RM 121 are being used on RM 133. It had previously been believed that no 88 seater railcar would survive for preservation, but the PRS and the RM 133 Trust successfully recovered RM 133 from its resting place at Auckland International Airport where it had been used by the rescue services for training. One end was fire damaged, but luckily the very same end of RM 121 was recovered, and other parts have been sourced from the remnants of RM 119. The Society aims to fully rebuilt an operational 88 seater.
The two TR locomotives are small shunting locomotives, and the PWD D class is another shunting locomotive that was solely operated by the PWD on its construction projects and never owned by the Railways Department. The Society also possesses three jiggers (surfacemen's trolleys), two motorised and one hand-powered, and the turntable from Thames. The Society's collection of rolling stock includes both four-wheel and bogie wagons of an array of types, from a guard's van to cement and sheep wagons.
