New Zealand: Model T Ford railcar offers museum visitors a glimpse into the past

[James Patten]

This link was forwarded to us by the president of the Pleasant Point Museum & Railway on the South Island of New Zealand.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/109991693/model-t-ford-railcar-offers-museum-visitors-a-glimpse-into-the-past?cid=app-iPad

[John McNamara]

We need to send him a video of our railcar in action...

[Bill Baskerville]

Really interesting.  Their Railway is 3'6" gauge.  Wikipedia references - "one other replica of a Model T Ford railcar exists in the United States but it was built to different specifications."  The Pleasant Point Museum and Railway has 1.6 miles of track upon which to run.

[Wayne Laepple]

Let's see: there are four in Maine, I think. Plus at least one in Colorado and one in Oregon. I'll bet there are others that I've missed. Maybe it's the only one in the Southern Hemisphere?

[Keith Taylor]

Let's see: there are four in Maine, I think. Plus at least one in Colorado and one in Oregon. I'll bet there are others that I've missed. Maybe it's the only one in the Southern Hemisphere?

Four in Maine? I know of the one at the WW&F, one in the Owl’s Head collection and that’s it for Model T rail cars. The two Sandy River rail busses were based on REO trucks and are currently powered with Model A Ford power plants.

[Philip Marshall]

The SR&RL Vose inspection car at MNG is a Model T, plus there is the new replica of SR&RL railbus No. 3 in Phillips. That makes four.

(SR&RL railbuses Nos. 4 and 5 were REOs, but No. 3 was a Ford.)

[Jeff Schumaker]

Any photos of the replica SR&RL #3?

Jeff S.

[Keith Taylor]

Philip
Thanks....I had forgotten about the Vose car.
Was SR&RL 3 a track car or a rail bus?
Keith

[Jeff Schumaker]

SR&RL #3 was originally a railbus. I believe it became maintenance equipment, with the arrival of #4 and #5.

Jeff S.

[Philip Marshall]

There used to be a whole page about the railcar No. 3 project on the old SR&RL website, but it appears to be gone now. I think it was a private project and not officially part of their roster.

[John L Dobson]

There's a replica of an SR&RL Model T railcar on the two-foot gauge Beeches Light Railway in Oxfordshire. It has an original model T engine, but I don't know its origin.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beeches_Light_Railway