Full Steam

Passchendaele, steam engine ready to roll out of Otaki train station in Winter, New Zealand. In 1925 the Minister of Railways, Gordon Coates, agreed to a propos...
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Passchendaele, steam engine ready to roll out of Otaki train station in Winter, New Zealand. In 1925 the Minister of Railways, Gordon Coates, agreed to a proposal to name a steam locomotive ‘in memory of those members of the New Zealand Railways who fell in the Great War’. After considering the names Somme, Le Quesnoy and Ypres, Coates chose Passchendaele.
The locomotive selected to carry the name was AB 608. Built at Christchurch’s Addington railway workshops in 1915, this was the first of the famed class of AB ‘Pacifics’ – probably the most successful and versatile locomotives ever to run on New Zealand railways. More than 140 of these engines were produced between 1915 and 1926.
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