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Title: Thirty Years on the Footplate

Author: Frances Brebner

In: The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 14, Issue 2 (May 1, 1939)

Publication details: New Zealand Government Railways Department

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Part of: The Railways Magazine

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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 14, Issue 2 (May 1, 1939)

Snow Scene

Snow Scene.

Winter brought a fantastic unreality to the departure from Ohakune in the cab of an engine fitted with snow ploughs and brushes. The rails, and all page 28

page 29

(Photo., W. W. Stewart Collection.) The New Zealand Railways powerful “K” class locomotive. Type, 4-8-4 with double bogie tender; water capacity, 5,600 gallons; coal capacity, 7 ½ tons; total weight in working order, 136 tons: tractive force, 30,815 Ibs.

(Photo., W. W. Stewart Collection.) The New Zealand Railways powerful “K” class locomotive. Type, 4-8-4 with double bogie tender; water capacity, 5,600 gallons; coal capacity, 7 ½ tons; total weight in working order, 136 tons: tractive force, 30,815 Ibs.

the surrounding countryside were completely covered with a mantle of snow. Houses, white-roofed and faerie beneath a cold white moon, stood silently as in some pictured old-world Christmas scene. Jewels of snow sparkled from every bush, and an occasional dark blur marked a rabbit in flight.