Fell Museum - The Brake Van

Romain Busby

I love the little glass panes in the doors of Brake Van F210, very reminiscent of cottage doors! The van is the last one left in New Zealand and Featherston is extremely lucky to have it along with H199 in the centre of town. Vital for the operation of the Fell line there were at times 5 or more brake vans in each train. The number depended on if it was a passenger or freight train and the weight.

After life on the Fell line, it served at Rewanui near Greymouth at the Coal mine that had a line with a centre rail, for another 11 years. It was sold privately and then donated to MoTat where it sat from 1969 to 1995 when it arrived in Featherston. The van was leased from MoTaT in Auckland and one of the conditions of the lease was that it was restored to its original condition when it worked the Incline, and that took another 2 years.

Inside the van you can see the large wheels that were turned by the guards to enable the brakes to grip the centre rail to slow the train on descent of the Incline. The brake blocks normally only lasted one trip, so it was a constant job to replace them by the engineers down at Cross Creek. When you are in the Museum spot the blocks and see how they have been abraded by wear. It would be interesting to know if the old blocks were recycled back into new replacement brake blocks. That’s perhaps an issue for next month’s Phoenix!