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Stanleyville Pier Coach

*The following history is a continuation of what is seen on the main layout page. Please read that information before continuing.*

After a gradual decline, the Stanleyville Railway had closed in June 1967. Afterwards, the 2nd platform at Thames station and the pier in Stanleyville had been removed, but the rest of the track had not. In 1975, the old formation of the bush tramway in the Pendletown area was converted into a cycle path.

It was in this abandoned state that the railway would continue to rest in for a long time. In 1978, the old route to Tauranga (via Paeroa and the Karangahake Gorge) was closed and replaced by the Kaimai Tunnel. Fast forward to 1989. By this time the remaining line from Morrinsville to Thames was also in decline. Toyota was looking at changing their operations to have the cars made and assembled in Japan, eliminating the need for trains to run from Morrinsville to Thames. Around this time, a wealthy English rail enthusiast\ - named Gary Porcelain - was looking at forming a preservation society to save the Thames line. He was able to gather a group of concerned locals from Morrinsville, Waitoa, Te Aroha and Paeroa. Around the same time, a logo was created for the new company. The symbles were a Moa bird and a Class 37 diesel locomotive. The latter was due to Mr. Porcelain having fond memories of Class 37's when he was still living in England. On the 4th of March 1990, this group went to the New Zealand Rail office in Hamilton and presented their cause. Unfortunately they were unable to secure purchase of the Thames branch after the eventual closure, which did not happen until 1991.

However, all hope was not lost, as a woman living in Thames phoned Mr. Porcelain one day in September 1991. She reminded him about the abandoned line from Thames to Pendletown. It was at that moment Porcelain hung up and went off to make some plans.

On the 1st of January 1992, Gary and his associates got in their cars and headed off towards Stanleyville. There they found the remains of the pier supports jutting out of the water, as well as the abandoned track running to Pendletown. They also discovered that a rugby club had been set up on the outskirts of Pendletown just two months before the expedition. On January the 4th, the group came across the cycle track in the town, built on the site of the old bush tramway, which closed in 1962.

After two weeks of exploring the Stanleyville area, Gary and his men returned to their base in Paeroa. It was there they formed a plan to rebuilt the Thames to Pendletown railway and operate it as a tourist venture. By now people's opinion on the Stanleyville area had changed, and it was looking more and more likely that a cruise ship operation would be launch out of the remains of the former port. Work to revive the railway commenced in April 1992. However, budget constraints meant the team would not be able to restore the Thames to Stanleyville section. Instead they devised a scheme where the old formation would be converted into a guided busway, using the old railway tunnel into Stanleyville Forest.

A new station was built in the forest outside Stanleyville, being completed in February 1993. This work included building an array of sidings to house the soon-to-be-ordered rolling stock. Then came the job of rebuilding the track to Pendletown. But there was a problem. All traces of the original Stanleyville station had been lost to redevelopment in the 1970s. This meant the only option was to built an underground station - which would later become Stanleyville Town. The new station took four years to construct, finishing in April 1997. An additional tunnel was built that would allow the railway to curve away from the town and head out through the beach and onto the pier.

As the old Stanleyville Pier had been removed in the early 1970s, a new one had to be built in its place. The new Stanleyville Pier ended up being around 20 metres shorter than the original. While this was going on, a new station was built on the outskirts of Pendletown. This station would exclusively serve the Old Boys rugby club. The old Pendletown station was being heavily refurbished around the same time.

Whilst all this construction work was going on, Gary Porcelain - the man behind the revival of the Stanleyville Railway - was placing an order with Hutt Workshops in Wellington. The order was for 24 passenger coaches, built to a similar design as the old A and AA type coaches from the 1940s. These coaches were finished in March 1999, and sent by rail to Morrinsville. Once there they were each taken to Stanleyville Forest by truck, and loaded onto the rails there. As the Stanleyville system did not have its own locomotive yet, they were using a very cumbersome bulldozer and a strong chain to shunt the coaches around in the yard. By the end of March 1999, all 24 coaches had been safely delivered to the new railway.

The refurbishment of Pendletown station was completed just before the end of November 1999. Now came the job of acquiring locomotives to run the railway.

As he had some Canadian ancenstry, Mr. Porcelain went to Canada for a few months in early 2000. While he was there he found just what he was looking for - 2 affordable diesel locomotives. One was an F7A from Canadian National and the other was an FP7 from GO Transit, the commuter rail system in Toronto. These engines arrived in early 2001, and they both received English liveries. F7A No. 9164 received Railfreight Red Stripe, while FP7 No. 904 received the standard BR Blue. For whatever reason, the FP7 never received an SR logo, while the F7A did. After being converted to 3ft 6inch gauge, the two Canadian engines started test runs on the line before entering passenger service in 2003. This was the first time that fare-paying passengers had ridden on a train in the Stanleyville area since 1967.

Passenger numbers were very slow to start with. For the first 13 years of operation, the Stanleyville Railway only operated two return trips a day, five days a week. It wasn't until February 2016 that a contract was finally secured to have cruise ships docking in Stanleyville. The first ship arrived on the 2nd of April that year. The sudden increase in passenger numbers resulted in all trains to Pendletown being cancelled, so the railway could focus their efforts on catering to the cruise ship passengers. The F7A and FP7 pair struggled to cope with the workload. KiwiRail generously offered one of their DSG class shunting locomotives to the railway. While the DSG wasn't anywhere near as powerful as the F7A and FP7, she helped relieve the stress on the two Canadian engines. After the 31st of May, the passenger numbers returned to normal levels, and the DSG was returned to KiwiRail.

Mr. Porcelain realised that he would need to acquire more locomotives if he ever wanted his railway to be the big success he was hoping for back in 1991. In January 2017, he spoke with KiwiRail about possibly buying some of their locomotives. KR oblidged, selling three DX series locomotives to the railway in March of that year. The DL class had made most of the DX's redundant, so to see three of them being sold into preservation (if you will) was a relief to many. The engines were DXB's 5068, 5114 and DXC 5287, and they arrived at Stanleyville Forest yard on the 29th of March. They were repainted in the SR's standard purple livery, which was first launched on the 24 coaches back in 2004.

*The history continues on the 'Stanleyville Mainline Coach' page.*