An original flyer finally comes home

SONIA GERKEN/151008

POLISHED ACT: Waimea Plains Railway Trust chairman Colin Smith buffs up the Rogers K92, one of the original Kingston flyers that has returned to its home in Mandeville.

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One of the original Kingston flyers has returned home to Mandeville, ready to embark on a new chapter in its 130-year life.

The Rogers K92 arrived on the back of a truck from Kingston, her gleaming brass and woodwork a far cry from the engine that was discovered more than 20 years ago in the Oreti River, where it had been dumped with other old locomotives to combat erosion.

Owned by the Waimea Plains Railway Trust, the Rogers had been based at Kingston but the financial turmoil that has plagued the existing Kingston Flyer prompted the trust to bring her home.

Waimea trust chairman Colin Smith said the return of the train would create the impetus and enthusiasm to get on with raising money to build a display shed, part of a big redevelopment that would ultimately see the restoration of a couple of original carriages and redeveloping part of the old Mandeville railway yard and line.

Mr Smith envisaged a line running around the Mandeville airfield. This would give visitors the unique ability to experience vintage trains as well as aircraft at one venue. In her day, the Rogers was the fastest means of transport from Gore to Lumsden on a stretch of railway line built by wealthy run-holders when the government refused to build one. The locomotive would literally fly the line and was dubbed the Kingston Flyer long before the larger locomotive, known today by the same name, arrived.

Mandeville was the only substantial part of the Waimea railway still left, he said.

sonia.gerken@stl.co.nz

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