The following is a press release and photographs from the Hauraki Prospectors Association.
Steam returns to
Thames
"A whistle
blew, and steam billowed around Hauraki Prospectors Association volunteers yesterday
for their first fire-up of a renovated stationary steam engine. It is among
very few such operating engines in the country and the only one set-up to run a
stamper battery.
The “dream
of steam” goes back some 50 years and has driven members to collect old engine
parts and boilers over the decades, with major components for seven stationary
steam engines now on site, although the condition of these varies greatly. Murray
Stent of Orongo, Hauraki Plains, who has worked such engines since obtaining a
first-class steam qualification in 1956, refurbished the best steam engine to pristine
condition in the 1970s and 1980s, with the intention of one day connecting to a
steam boiler.
The vision
has been revised recently with increasing success of
Steampunk The Thames, the annual Thames Steampunk Festival, and the growing
number of overseas tourists with a passionate interest in steam visiting the
association’s Goldmine-Experience site.
In June this
year, the Thames Community Board provided $20,000 in a local economic
development grant towards the project, which has been used for parts to set up
a steam boiler in operating condition (ex-Adams clothing factory in Thames) to
connect to the engine. This required an official survey and certification, lagged
piping to connect it to the steam engine plus steam-pipes, bearings,
counter-shafts, valves and other fittings.
The steam
engine started yesterday originally drove a sawmill in the King Country area of
Taringamotu and was saved from scrap-yards by Driving Creek Railway founder
Barry Brickell, a supporter of the Thames group. About 30 years ago, members
visited a similar engine that an Albert Baker discovered in an abandoned battery
at the top of Rangihau Road, Coroglen. It was used to drive a five-stamp
stamper battery, leading the Thames group to believe it could replicate this.
Calculations also supported the belief.
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ABOVE: Murray Stent (left) and Eric Mountford with the new steam
engine in Thames.
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However, in
comparison to these “mobile engines”, stationary steam engines were rare, with
the main collection (35) on display at the Tokomaru Steam Engine Museum in the
lower North Island. One was set up to run and could provide power for the site.
The British society found another operating steam engine at the Kauri Milling
and Transport Museum at Kerikeri running a recreated sawmill. At Gore one that had been using for
animal-feed milling was in good working condition, oiled and tuned monthly but
not generally available for public viewing.
Since these
studies, the Kerikeri steam sawmill has shut down and the Tokomaru Steam Engine
Museum has been closed to the public also, except for group visits by
arrangement, and the site is up for sale.
According to
Te Ara, the Encyclopedia of New Zealand http://teara.govt.nz/en/farm-mechanisation/page-3 portable steam engines were imported
for farming in the 1860s and in a census in 1919 New Zealand had 728 stationary
engines used for agriculture (eg threshing mills and winnowing machines). Hundreds
of other such engines were used in flax mills, sawmills and mines, including
some on the Coromandel Peninsula and Hauraki Plains but actual numbers are
unknown.
The
histories of a few of the engine components at the Goldmine-Experience site are
known and as well as restoring at least two engines volunteers hope to record
as much as they can of the histories of all of them. One engine comes from
Roberts’ Mine, which was up Waiotahi Creek, and it has been converted quite
ingeniously by former engineers into an air compressor. This is
“second-on-the-list” for in the group’s steam restoration plan.
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ABOVE: Murray Stent with refurbished steam boiler.
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Mr Stent,
81, who has run the steam refurbishment project this year in conjunction with
the association’s chief engineer Nelson Valiant, operated steam engines throughout
the district last century, starting off at a casein factory at Turua, then in
various sawmills and running a large marine-type engine at Paerata that drove
NZ Dairy’s butter churns."
For further information Contact: Paul
Bensemann, HPA, 021 2142665
Special thanks to the Hauraki Prospectors Association for permission to publish story & photographs
Special thanks to the Hauraki Prospectors Association for permission to publish story & photographs
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ABOVE: Murray Stent operating the steam engine.
BELOW: Murray Stent starting up the steam engine.
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For further information on the Hauraki Prospectors Association and visiting details go to
Related Information on HPA:
Opening of the Stamper Battery 6 August 2017
