137-year-old carriage recovered from Southland farm

A carriage from an 1883 passenger train has been recovered from a farm in Western Southland after the owners gifted it to the Lumsden Heritage Trust.

Lumsden Heritage Trust chairman John Titter said it took nearly four hours to transport the carriage from the Wairio farm to its final home 64km away in Lumsden. 

Mr Titter said no-one was sure how the 137-year-old carriage made it to the farm, where it had been sitting since 1952.

"It was a happy coincidence that the trust heard about the A Class, elevated roof passenger car," he said.

Mr Titter said he had been looking at another carriage before he heard about the one on the farm owned by Philippa Montgomery.

When he got in touch with Mrs Montgomery "she immediately offered to gift the carriage to the Lumsden Heritage Trust," he said.

"The passenger car was built by New Zealand Railways at Addington, Christchurch, in 1883. The 43-foot wooden car was a composite – half first class, half second class. It was sold to the Ohai Railway Board in 1941 and remained in use there until 1952, when it was transported to the farm now owned by the Montgomerys."

"The trust plans to refurbish the carriage and use it as an information kiosk telling the story of the V Class locomotives and other information about the township’s proud railway history."

The trust called on the same team of contractors who carried out the recovery of two 1885 V Class steam locomotives from a tributary of the Oreti River in January this year.

The locomotives were dumped in the river in 1927 along with boilers, wagons and other metal scraps to help form a flood protection wall.