The Pahiatua Railcar Society (PRS) is a society located in

Pahiatua , image_skyline = Market day pahiatua 1st dec 2007 1.JPG , imagesize = , image_caption = , image_flag = , flag_size = , image_seal = , seal_size = , image_shi ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

, dedicated to the restoration of

railcar A railcar (not to be confused with a railway car) is a self-propelled railway vehicle designed to transport passengers. The term "railcar" is usually used in reference to a train consisting of a single coach (carriage, car), with a drive ...

s and other locomotives and rolling stock formerly operated by the

New Zealand Railways Department The New Zealand Railways Department, NZR or NZGR (New Zealand Government Railways) and often known as the "Railways", was a government department charged with owning and maintaining New Zealand's railway infrastructure and operating the railway ...

. It is notable for possessing the sole remaining examples of the RM class 88 seater and Wairarapa railcars. Having restored Standard class railcar Rm 31 to mainline standard for use on the national railway network, the Society ran its first revenue services on the Wairarapa Line at an open day on 12 February 2012.

Infrastructure

The PRS is based at Pahiatua's railway station on the

Wairarapa Line The Wairarapa Line is a secondary railway line in the south-east of the North Island of New Zealand. The line runs for , connects the capital city Wellington with the Palmerston North - Gisborne Line at Woodville, via Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt ...

and has preserved the station building,

goods shed A goods shed is a railway building designed for storing goods before or after carriage in a train. A typical goods shed will have a track running through it to allow goods wagons to be unloaded under cover, although sometimes they were built ...

, 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

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.

Rolling stock

NZR Railcars

Diesel locomotives

Wagons

Rm 31 is 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 be largely rebuilt due to its rotten wooden frame, and Rm 121. Parts of Rm 119 and Rm 133 are being used on Rm 121. It used to be believed that no 88 seater railcar would survive for preservation, but the PRS and the Rm 133 Railcar Trust Board recovered Rm 133 from its resting place at

Auckland International Airport Auckland Airport is the largest and List of the busiest airports in New Zealand, busiest airport in New Zealand, with over 21 million passengers in the year ended March 2019. The airport is located near Māngere, a residential suburb, and Airp ...

where it had been used by the rescue services for training. As both ends were affected by a fire, it has subsequently been decided to dedicate all efforts to the restoration of Rm 121. Both ends of Rm 121 have now been recovered and other parts have been sourced from the remnants of Rm 133 and Rm 119. The society aims to fully rebuild 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 A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

from

Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...

. The society's collection of rolling stock includes both four-wheel and

bogie A bogie ( ) (in some senses called a truck in North American English) is a chassis or framework that carries a wheelset, attached to a vehicle—a modular subassembly of wheels and axles. Bogies take various forms in various modes of transp ...

wagons of an array of types, from a guard's van to cement and sheep wagons. In September 2020, the Society announced it had bought the three recently-retired Silver Fern Railcars off of

KiwiRail KiwiRail Holdings Limited is a New Zealand state-owned enterprise responsible for rail operations in New Zealand, and operates inter-island ferries. Trading as KiwiRail and headquartered in Wellington, New Zealand, KiwiRail is the largest rail ...

References

External links

* {{Coord, 40, 26, 42.77, S, 175, 48, 50.7, E, display=title Railway museums in New Zealand Museums in the Wellington Region