The Southern Steam Charitable Trust will soon be pulling into the station with their nearly restored F150 locomotive, a project that has been in the work since 2019.

Chairman and founding member Lindsay Buckingham said the trust was initially formed to help save the Kingston Flyer, attempting to preserve it for the community.

“In 2017 it got sold to its current owners and we were chasing money at that stage to acquire it and make sure it stayed together.

“We decided if we were going to just pack up and fold the trust or do something else, we ended up doing something else and we found the 150,” he said.

 After a bit of negotiation with its owners in Ashburton, they managed to come to an agreement and get it down to Invercargill, he said.

“We built a new cab, new saddle tank and new smoke box . . . a lot of it’s still original but there was just no option but to rebuild.”

 The restoration would be complete in about 12 months, if the trust could raise the remaining funds. 

“We’ve been fortunate enough to raise nearly $100,000 in the last few months, we need about $180,000 to finish the boiler.

“If I get all the money together we need, we’ll have it finished in 12 months and ready to operate.”

Four years into retirement after a life in engineering and construction, Mr Buckingham was simultaneously the chair and “full-time unpaid project manager”, he said.

There were five trustees and around nine volunteers who helped with the restoration, with a number of local businesses also contributing some paid labour.

“Our original loco budget was about $600,000 but as you do with restoration stuff we found a whole lot of additional work meaning our current budget is around $950,000.”

However, this project has multiple stages as Southern Steam is planning to take over the Makarewa Railway once the F150 is up and running.

Southern Steam has also expressed its interest in taking over a 7km stretch of the recently mothballed Ohai rail line, aiming to establish its  base of operations near the Makarewa freezing works.

“We’re looking to run three times a year between Invercargill and Bluff doing weekend trips . . . four return trips each weekend,” Mr Buckingham said.

He hoped they would be up and running by early 2028 with carriages, safety requirements and a rail operating license.

“Going forward because we’re looking to go into an operating scenario, we’ll actually need quite a few volunteers to help run the railway.”

Ideally they were looking to expand membership by 20 to 30 people.

“We want a range of people right from young kinds that want to get involved, right through to parents and grandparents.

“It becomes an intergenerational thing, it’s not just a bunch of grey heads.”

Southern Steam runs an open day on the third  Sunday of every month, offering a family friendly opportunity “for railway enthusiasts and the wider community to connect with Southland’s rail heritage”.

  tayler.mutton@alliedmedia.co.nz