A small crowd gathered and watched.
Waimea Plains Railway Trust trustee Neville Simpson said the locomotive was named the Flyer because it cut the travelling time from Gore to Kingston from three days to five hours.
Built in 1878 by the Rogers Loco company of New Jersey, United States, K92 was retrieved from a river in Southland in 1990, where it had been since 1921, used as part of a stopbank.
It was carefully and lovingly restored by the Te Anau Vintage Machinery Club, led by Herbie Hall, Ted Roberts and the late Bill Fahey.
Mr Simpson said the group sold K92 in 1997, and in 1998 it was bought by the Croydon Aircraft Company, comprising Mr Simpson and Colin Smith, both from Mandeville, who then formed the Waimea Plains Railway Trust Board.
The locomotive was a couple of years in Gore being stripped down and reworked to make it more authentic, and then built up again.
It spent time at Ferrymead in Christchurch, Ashburton and Oamaru before being taken to Kingston for its 130th birthday last year.
Yesterday, it went "home", where it will eventually operate again on 4km of track as part of a railway museum.
Mr Simpson said the decision to move K92 was primarily due to the Kingston Flyer receivership.
"There's no operating licence here [in Kingston] any longer; we haven't got the opportunity to run it here.
"It's always been the plan to have it in Mandeville, for the railway museum [but] it's not going to be the same operation as the Kingston Flyer.
"It will complement the [existing] aeroplane museum and recreate the history of the railway . . .
It will be a different operation to the Kingston Flyer and wouldn't detract [from it]."
The railway museum, which would cost "hundreds of thousands" to establish, was in its infancy.
Planning had been completed and consents granted, so it was now just a matter of raising capital, Mr Simpson said.
"We've already raised some money through the lottery board and the Community Trust of Southland.
"As we continue to build the railway and the museum, we're hoping more and more people will come on board."
