The tank isotainers are more practical: you can lift one out of the wagon for cleaning instead with the old OM tank wagon that you Need remove from service by brinhghing it in a rail accessible facility. A container can be put on to a truck for a road tank wash facility
There is Still an overflow of milk in palmerston North that paiatua cannot process? i read that those with the new milk powder production line at paiathua had stopped the need to ship the excess milk that can't process in the parmeston north to the fonterra whareroa plant
Yes, myself & Zane have watched your video not long after it was uploaded. We noted your location. I had given thought to that Cobham Bridge vantage point on the day, but realised it was going to be hard to get from the bridge to the table in the short amount of time given.
Ever noticed railway enthusiasts are, on-the-whole, dedicated youtubers as well? There is not much 2024 street drags on RU-vid, but the RiverCity Express is well represented.
Nice video Marky. I watched with my boy and he loved counting all the wagons and loved seeing the 4 DL locos together. Nice piece of track following the contours of the land.
Well thankyou Singningwongho. I too like to count the wagons. I do this each day. Then the following day I try to better my score. The 4 DLs were a surprise; in fact that whole train snuck up with little warning. I tried to show my little daughter the video but she kept saying 'Paw Patrol'
I lived in Wanganui between 1984 and 1987. I recall the local Labour MP saying he'd resign if the workshops closed. They did but he didn't. I also recall a bloke buying the workshops with much fan fare but not being able to turn a profit on the purchase and eventually paying the price. Locals will know who he was.
@peterfinucane8122 the first rider was doing a circuit through Matipo Park & up the boundary etc. Went around every 15mins or so. The second rider appeared right there and then. I held my breath and then relaxed when I knew the rider was aware of the train. There are two closed level grade crossings hidden in the video. The upper one was occasionally used until 1991 by forestry logging crews & council workers with spray-units mounted on 4wd utilities. The lower crossing was formally closed in recent years. A road access bridge has slumped into a creek and has not been replaced. Also KiwiRail felt the crossing had poor visibility and it was closed. There has been a discussion about the construction of an underpass, but this is seen as an expense that local rate payers may struggle supporting.
Thanks Mark! Been hoping someone would come through after I spotted them on Tuesday or Wednesday from my house. Not seen them closely, they almost look forklift-able?
Hi. I assume they are a stock-standard 'off the shelf' designed ISO tank. They are probably forkliftable only when empty. Each tank is 24000Lt. So a two tank wagon is 2000Lt shy of the capacity of an old OM class wagon. In the off season, they would probably get grounded at Palmy railyard, and the wagon would remain in revenue earning service. It's good to see the MNPL being busy during the dairy season. Apparently the Milk Traffic starts on Oct 15th and finishes after 8 weeks
@@peterscandlyn fonterra can be pretty cunning on contract renegotiation I remember asking a fonterra employee why there were so many trucks on the road (unbranded) he just made the comment that the kiwi rail contract is up for renegotiation!! It’s also useful to point out that those tanks go to Hawera full in a train with often empty coda wagons and containers! The reverse is true on the return trip! At one point the Hawera milk factory was the largest in the southern hemisphere!
@@peterscandlyn I'm pretty sure that Fonterra is Kiwirails biggest customer by some distance, I had a conversation with a Fonterra employee and he said all the product going for export goes to a warehouse in Hamilton (just north of) and the vast majority is sent on to the ports of Auckland
@@tonymckeage1028 Yeah I'd imagine they are Tony. What you said supports their desire to reopen the Stratford line north, be a lot more efficient for them,. Shame about those logs though....cheers.
I must get hold of this book. Between the ages of about four and six when I was in Wanganui I used to wander along to the workshops and talk to the men working there. I remember them all being very nice to me and one even offered me a Ka he was working on because it was due to be scrapped in the near future. My mother wasn't sure that it would fit in the back yard. Health and safety not being such a big deal 60 years ago I was not the only young enthusiast to show up to nose about. I feel very lucky to have been able to do so.
Thankyou for sharing your memories. I was a child of the 1980's and deregulation, restructuring and closing down of factories across many sectors made for a hard time in Wanganui. There was many a grim discussion between the adults over the family dinner table when I was a child. Both my grandfathers worked at East Town, Joseph Hoey (a fitter and turner) and Tom Seconi (paint shop). Many of our neighbours were railwaymen, so I naturally took an interest in the Wanganui East railscene. In this video, Ive included clips of passing container trains. It shows that railfreight is still on the move, but the freight is carried in modern ISO shipping containers and not in old-fashioned wooden 4-wheel wagons, a type of which used to be maintained at East Town. One thing I learned from the book, is that East Town was constantly threatened by change; there are two or three occassions in it's hundred year history where it could have been packed up and had its activities transfired elsewhere in New Zealand
Yes. The last KiwiRail freight service was in 2012. Then Da 1431 hauled a six car excursion on the branch on Nov 1st 2014. In the last ten years, the Kapuni Branch has only seen trains hauled by vintage locomotives
This is obscene and tragic, drivers need to understand they are 100% responsible if they drive onto a crossing with a train comeing, thanks for sharing
Great Video Mark, it always confuses me that a train pickign up wagons can have 50% without containers?, I think we have had this discussion before,thanks for sharing
Great Video Mark, I vaguely remember the floods, and have googled it and read a herald article about it! I was interested to see the Mcintosh crane cross the tracks after the train, thanks for sharing
Great Video Mark, these videos raise more questions than answers, your description answered my main one which was what were passenger wagons doing in easttown, and what was the story with DC 4352, thanks for your (always) detailed and informative videos
That was videoed on a digital still camera on 'video mode'. I had to hold the camera as still as possible. I had just gotten into being a youtuber back then and was only on a part time wage and it took a while to save for a new camera.
Interesting Video Mark, my experience with a belt driven saw was sawing firewood with a diesel (tractor) driven saw bench, the belt was a hugely inefficient way to deliver power, a very impressive team breaking down that log
Great Video, I find it interesting the scale of fonterra as a customer of kiwirail, the raw product going up line from longburn, and maybe pahiatua, and processed product heading north, for export i am told via Auckland! thanks mark
Over the last 20 years 'The Railways' have constantly been reducing their rail-serviced customers in Taranaki & Whanganui. In 2002 they deliberately closed dozens of private sidings and just focused on one or two big customers. This included a strong focus on the Fonterra factory at Whareroa. But they have put their few remaining eggs in one basket, and if that basket gets dropped, then the whole line becomes empty. This video was from 2017 and it looked like 'rail was on a roll' and the railfreight-renaissance had arrived. However, the log traffic in this video was discontinued in Feb 2023 because of rising railfreight rates and a shakey post-covid international log-market. But never-the-less, there is still log flow in this region and it is now on road transport all the way to the port. It is uncertain how export product from Fonterra will be transported to the ports in the 23/24 season. The only guaranteed rail traffic at this stage is southbound rail-freight. Northbound might go to road transport which will see less through-freights like the ones in this video.
