Wellington Meat Export 0-4-0 Locomotives in New_Zealand

Class Peter Sole (Locobase 4797)

Data from [] . For post-2000 update, see [], last accessed 14 April 2015. Works number 1181.

Originally imported to move wagons around the Wellington docks, this little engine (builder's number 1181) fell into decay after her immobilization in 1962. She gained a new life in 1996, when a group of high-school boys (they were 10 to 13 years old at the beginning) conceived the crazy idea of restoring this locomotive.

Alex Maciver's account (see []) credits Peter Sole, an adult working with Steam Inc, the preservation society on whose rails the derelict tank engine sat, with providing the direction and instruction that made the project possible. (Stuart Flood and Peter Drummond are the other "Barclay Boys" named in Maciver's story.)

"He surveyed what we had done, talked to us all, then turned the whole thing into a proper restoration project. He was very keen on showing railfans, and ourselves what youths could accomplish on steam.

"Instead of taking over the difficult tasks, Pete taught us how to use basic hand tools, how to arc weld, how to protect metal, how to scrounge for materials, and showed us the steps of restoring a loco.

"With Pete regularly stopping over to check our progress and help out with lifting components, we started dismantling the old shunter."

Sole died of inoperable cancer on 27 April 1998, after which the Steam Incas chose to name the engine for him.

Although they continued work for a while, the Barclay Boys "moved on to bigger projects or away from the region," according to the Silver Stream Railway status report. The locomotive remained in limbo until an SSR member and his family and moved it to the SSR in September 2012. Its restoration would be delayed both by pre-existing commitments to other projects and the need for a considerable amount of "major work"--"a new saddle tank, cab and bunkers, major boiler repairs including a new inner firebox and outer wrapper repairs and the renewal of worn or missing components including motion parts damaged many years ago."