| Driving Wheels | 3ft 0in |
| Weight | 26t |
| Boiler Pressure | 150psi |
| Cylinders | Outside – 11in x 18in |
This locomotive was built Andrew Barclay at Kilmarnock and shipped to the Gear Meat Company of Petone in October 1913.
The Gear company was founded in 1874 by James Gear, a Wellington butcher, who saw the benefits of Petone for his expanding business. He acquired a cheap 12 hectare site on the foreshore at Petone where he considered that his slaughterhouse operations would be less likely to cause offence than at Wellington, but where rail and shipping services were close at hand. The Wellington to Wairarapa railway had been constructed in the 1870’s and the port of Wellington had become more easily accessible from the Hutt Valley.
Gear built the first jetty at Petone and procured an old ship which he fitted out with refrigeration equipment. Carcasses were loaded onto the hulk for freezing, then towed across Wellington Harbour for loading directly onto the ships moored in port. Gear’s first land-based freezers were not built until 1891.
There was not much livestock in the Hutt Valley, where Gear Meat Works was established in 1882. But its proximity to the railway on which the livestock arrived, and a port, Wellington, from which the meat was shipped, made it an optimal location for a meat freezing works. Shipping was important as New Zealand began exporting frozen meat to Britain in 1882. At its peak the plant handled 10,000 sheep and 600 cattle a day.
Petone became a booming as a working-class suburb of Lower Hutt and grew when Unilever established a factory around 1900 to make candles out of Gear’s tallow.
In earlier times environmental concerns were not a great consideration for the authorities. Blood and offal were discharged directly into the harbour from the Gear plant, attracting sharks in large numbers and in the words of the town clerk of the day “causing an unbearable stench from a considerable distance away”. Not surprisingly the factory was nicknamed the stink factory.
The locomotive was used to shunt the sidings of the works, goods mainly being livestock in and frozen meat out.
There is evidence to suggest that the boiler was condemned in 1946 but it was thought to be still in service until 1954. It is believed that the locomotive was then stripped down for an overhaul but the overhaul appears to have got no further. As a result the locomotive remained in pieces for many years.
In the mid 1960s a local civil organisation involved in leadership training (Jaycee) undertook the task of reassembling the locomotive. It was than placed in Avalon Park in the Hutt Valley in 1965 where it was climbed on by children until 1989 when it was gifted to Silver Steam Railway by the Hutt City Council. It was than placed on display at the main entrance to the Silver Steam Railway in the Hutt Valley near Wellington.
The locomotive was painted a number of times whilst stored out in the open but it remained largely in the condition it was in when it left Avalon Park for many years before being moved under cover. It is hoped that at some time there will be sufficient resources (manpower and money) to be able to restore the locomotive.
Preserved Outside Britain – By Country
Preserved British Steam Locomotives 