DOC wins Rail Heritage Award
Award winning restoration of the Denniston Brakehead
In August 2008 the efforts of DOC staff, volunteers and students who worked on the Denniston Brakehead restoration project were recognised with the presentation of the Railway Heritage Trust Award in Westport.
DOC staff and volunteers worked through
bad weather to complete the restoration
The award has been in existence for fifteen years. The award is presented to groups and organisations who restore historic rail features such as stations, bridges and signal boxes. Emphasis is placed on the adherence to historic values and the quality of work completed.
In Denniston staff and volunteers had to become acquainted with the language of the trade - Jim Crow, a Pionjar, a Turfer, a Samsun brake, a Dead man, a stop block, the donkey side, the company side, a bag of dogs, a frog, set of points…These became frequently used terms during the project, which was one of the most demanding restoration projects undertaken in the Buller Area.
The team was led by DOC's John Green (Project Manager for the Buller Area). The task was the restoration of the 'Brakehead bins' - the coal handling site at the top of the Denniston incline. After the incline closed in 1967 the site had been used as a truck loading facility and then as a car park, so there was a significant amount of work to be done.
The Brakehead area before restoration
The plan was to restore the rail handling facility where the coal was loaded in preparation for trip down the incline. This work included laying the rails and sleepers with a considerable amount of rail bending and aligning in the restoration of the three rail centre alignment and two empty wagon alignments. All three rail alignments were set to a gradient that allowed gravity rolling in but all were at differing gradients with the empties rolling in and the full wagons rolling out.
Laying the timber staging where the workers operated and placing Q Wagons on each alignment using a large crane also presented a challenge. Continuous reference to old photos, videos and discussions with ex workers were used to ensure accuracy. One of the Q Wagons was to be placed just over the brow at the beginning of the down hill run. Other artefacts found on site were returned to their original situation where possible.
In planning the operation John Green enlisted the help of well known rail expert John Gurney to head a team made up of DOC Archaeologist Jackie Breen, DOC Conservancy Heritage advisor Jim Staton, local contractor Bob Dawber and Richard Mathis, a local engineer with rail experience.
The Brakehead following restoration
After obtaining authority to carry out the work on the 1878 site from Historic Places Trust, work began on 1st May 2007 removing the car parking material, which had compacted half a metre deep over the original layer.
Hot food was available at all times and workers had to seek shelter regularly as the weather was unpredictable at the altitude of over 2000 feet. The team endured torrential rain, gale force winds, snow blizzards and ankle deep mud to finally complete the job in two 4-day stages.
John Gurney, who was apprehensive at first attempting such a job with some of the team who had never worked on rail before, remarked after the job "I must say that the DOC guys and gals are excellent workers, no one moaned or groaned as the rain flowed from the sky. All pitched in and are great bunch to work with. So we had three track laying teams racing to lay track. Great fun."
DOC funded the project with sponsorship from On Track, Cascade Mining Company and Oceania Gold who supplied beech timber sourced from the forest cleared by their mining operation.
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