Locomotives & Rolling Stock

Steam Incorporated owns a number of passenger carriages. Most are currently certified for main line running, some are out of service for maintenance, and the remainder wait their turn for restoration.

These vehicles all have some historical or structural significance and fall into two broad groups. Those built during the early years of the 1900's, which are the wooden panelled cars with the balcony ends, and those built during the late 1920's and early 1930's which are the more "modern" steel panelled cars without the balconies but with enclosed vestibule ends.

When originally restored, all of Steam Inc's carriages were painted in a Chocolate brown livery with yellow lining in order to differentiate them from the standard NZR red vehicles. It was found that the brown tended to fade to a somewhat shabby looking sand colour and required constant re-painting to keep them good looking. By the early 1990's NZR, and later Tranz Rail, had changed the colour schemes of their vehicles and the Society decided that it was time to re-paint the cars in as near to the original "Crimson Lake" as could be obtained with standard modern paints.

The society can thus reproduce (complete with an appropriate steam or diesel locomotive) a typical main line train that ran on the New Zealand railway system during the 1940 to 1970 period.

The society has a number of other vehicles, such as guards and luggage vans, the oil tank wagons that are used as storage/support vehicles for Ka945, several petrol tank wagons that are being converted to auxiliary water tenders for the steam locomotives, and a variety of 4-wheel and bogie freight vehicles. These vehicles are either undergoing or awaiting restoration or are used solely within the Steam Incorporated yard. The Society has also, in more recent years, become the custodian of several freight wagons and track repair vehicles that are part of the national Heritage collection.