Project Steam chairman John Sutherland said the Dunedin-based group was working to restore a P class steam locomotive by using the salvaged parts of four locomotives rescued for preservation.
The salvaged locomotives were among those the New Zealand Railways Department bought from British company Nasmyth, Wilson and Co in the 1880s and deployed to Otago.
Mr Sutherland (80), of Dunedin, said the locomotives were salvaged from locomotive dump sites in Otago and Southland as incomplete hulks.
In 1992, members of Project Steam salvaged the remains of P25 and P107, and the tenders, from Beaumont on the former Roxburgh branch.
Both locomotives were moved to Dunedin for restoration.
The locomotives were ''fairly complete'' but the group concentrated on restoring P107.
In 2009, the rolling chassis of P107 was trucked from Dunedin to Springfield, in Canterbury, for storage at the Midland Rail Heritage Trust's centre but was not operational.
In 2004, the Ohai Railway Board Heritage Trust salvaged the remains of P60 and P133 from the Branxholme locomotive dump site on the Wairio branch.
In 2014, the group bought the hulk of P133 and moved it to the KiwiRail yard in Mosgiel.
The P133 locomotive was moved from Mosgiel to a secret location in Middlemarch on Friday and stored with parts from the other three locomotives.
An inspector would determine if the boiler of P133 was serviceable, he said.
The group had been funding the restoration project with donations and grants, he said.
If a new boiler was needed, he estimated about $500,000 would be required to get the locomotive operational, he said.
Nostalgia, including memories of trips on steam trains as a child, was the group's motivation for the project, he said.
A restored steam engine would be a ''great attraction'' to have in Dunedin, he said.
''We are the only big city in New Zealand without an operational steam locomotive. Dunedin built more than 80 steam locomotives and we haven't got a live one.''
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Best of luck to them and I wish them every succes with this endeavour, but I can't help but wonder what the Ocean Beach Railway wonders about the fact that "We are the only big city in New Zealand without an operational steam locomtive"??