Ended up in Palmerston North yesterday arvo to run 546 home. As I had some time to kill after arrival, waiting for locos and wagons to be ready, I took the chance to go for a stroll, being a pleasant sunny Saturday afternoon and all.....
Always of interest to me is what might be hiding in storage sidings, and quite handy to the Palmy depot building is "coal road" where lots of old wagons are stored, seemingly with one foot in the grave. It looks like the scrappys have been rubbing their hands as there is plenty of evidence to suggest a cleanup is underway.
The place really did look like a bomb had gone off, or perhaps like a childs toy where all the bits fly off when banged hard enough!
There were a few ZG's and ZH's in the mix, along with the ENO and a bunch of flat wagons. There were also several sets of bogies still sitting on the tracks where they were left when what ever they had on top of them had been removed.
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ENO 15 now sitting on the hard sans bogies.
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And VRB's in various states of decomposition.
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And a ZD wagon. Why cant this wagon be out making money?? (Apart from the fact its not got any bogies)
There are usually slim pickings in the way of locos on a Saturday afternoon in Palmy, but today I found a few lounging in the sun.
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30's 203 and 007 rest by their repair shed.
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The yard hack rests...
Other than a couple of ratty DC's that we have all seen a hundred times before there was not much else worth mentioning other than spotting a freshly rebuilt ZHC wagon nearby. KR are rebuilding a bunch of ZH's by taking the big pain in the butt troublesome doors off and replacing them with much more user friendly side curtains. It certainly makes a dramatic change to the look of the wagon, but apparently its proving to be a hit with the customers and a large number of the wagons are being converted.
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The old and the new.
Not much later my locos were ready (5068 and 7307) so we put my 546 together and I trundled on home...

AH
William R
9/22/2012 04:42:43 pm

Some interesting pics there drew.

I see a Za tucked in there, do you still see them in regular traffic much? I know there's a long rake of them stored in Auckland ever since the new curtainers arrived and its probably been around the same length of time since I've seen one up this way. Figures this all happens just as it comes time to build one...

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Ev
9/25/2012 07:24:20 pm

Wot, no photos of one of the last remaining snot-bonnets in the area (7307) ??

I was in Palmy today and took the effort to photograph the Urea stencils on the ZG for future decals....

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Darryl B
9/28/2012 10:16:17 pm

Those ZHCs look really nice with their ungraffitied red sides.

Interesting to see i your pics that the end profile has been raised a little compared to a ZH also to provide a useful increase in cubic inches at the top corners.

Don't the ZAs (and ZPs if there are any left) look tiny now compared to the ZHCs that they have slowly morphed into over the past 40 years.

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