Some of the glories of Dunedin's engineering heritage will be
highlighted at a transtasman conference being hosted in the
city this weekend.
Among engineering treasures some of the 120 people attending
the engineering heritage conference will be able to examine
are recently discovered plans of the city's Mornington cable
car system, which began operating in 1883.
These plans and other records of the Reid and Duncan civil
engineering firm were recently donated anonymously to the
Hocken Library, after being found in an old building owned by
the donor.
The overall Dunedin cable tramway system was laid out by a
Yorkshire-born Dunedin senior engineer and surveyor, George
Duncan, who had earlier seen cable cars operating in San
Francisco.
Mr Duncan is regarded as the "father" of cable car systems in
New Zealand and Australia and is highly regarded for his
later design of the Melbourne Tramway system.
Conference organising committee chairman John Henderson said
this was the first time an Australasian Engineering Heritage
Conference had been held in Dunedin.
The event starts at Salmond College tomorrow.
More than 80 participants at the four-day event were from
outside Dunedin, including about 30 from Australia.
The conference's main speaker is Sir Neil Cossons, former
head of English Heritage and patron of the Dunedin Gasworks
Museum Trust.
Engineering heritage-related displays are being staged at the
Hocken Library, the Otago Settlers Museum, the Otago Museum
and the National Archives Dunedin office.
The recently-discovered Dunedin cable car plans are not on
display at the Hocken but can be viewed on request.
