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Post by kiwiduster1 on Feb 15, 2014 9:34:06 GMT 12
Hi guys, Many years ago as a young fella ( 12-16 years therabouts ) i used to bike from home in Fielding to the Taonui Aerodrome.This was during the 60s-70s and it was facinating to hang around and watch the antics of the pilots of that time. Best part was chatting to those guys and on occasion being invited to take a ride. This of course horrified my mother but she never banned me outright !! Those were special days and it pains me today to see kids ignored or even worse chased away from hanging around dromes!! Anyway to my question!! Can anyone remember or better still have pics of the mountains of lime at the railway siding beside the airfield! From memory there was also a very large movable gantry and conveyer for emptying the rail wagons. An aerial shot would be fantastic. Of course all that has gone now and there is no sign of that great era of the Ag Industry. Cheers.
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Post by kiwiduster1 on Feb 17, 2014 7:46:35 GMT 12
MMMMMMMMM, No replys? Now i am feeling ancient !! haha
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Post by thomarse on Feb 17, 2014 11:34:52 GMT 12
Sorry, I knew Taonui from the early to mid-60s but don't recall the lime or the siding.
I do remember a bulk-handling facility on a rail siding immediately opposite the Lodestar/Dak strip at Oringi.
Where's Kiwithrottlejockey?? He has expertise in both subjects
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Post by delticman on Feb 17, 2014 12:00:55 GMT 12
The old main road from Bunnythorpe followed the railway line on the northside to a rail crossing just on the Feilding side of the MAT hangar (now flight training). To the Feilding side, I think there was a track into the yard, but I think the main entrance was from the other end of the railyard. I think that lime heap would have been behind where the Gliding club hangars are now. Back then it was where the Aerial Farming aircraft parked. Somebodys Dad will know.
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on Feb 17, 2014 22:22:13 GMT 12
When I was working out of Napier from August 1976 to March 1978, Oringi was merely a well-used crossing station for trains travelling in opposite directions to pass each other. Some years later, after I had moved to Gisborne, a meat works was built at Oringi, then many years after that milk trains started running from there. Fertilizer/lime cartage by rail into Oringi must have been well before my time. Although during that period of less than two years when I was working out of Napier, trainloads of lime were leaving the Hatuma Lime Works at Marakeke siding. And trainloads of superphosphate used to get hauled by rail from Awatoto to Matawhero (near Gisborne) to keep Fieldair's three DC-3s and numerous Beavers based at Gisborne well-supplied (we were also hauling bulk superphosphate to Wairoa, some of which was feeding Fieldair's DC-3 based there). It was unloaded into a bulk Ravensdown store at Matawhero, then Fieldair had their own dump trucks & trailers picking the super up from there and delivering it to the fertilizer bins next to the railway line at the airport where the DC-3s loaded up for each run. As that DC-3 loader was right next to the UP Home Signal at the airport where trains heading into Gisborne were held while aeroplanes were taking off and landing on the main runway, we got to know all of the DC-3 dung-duster pilots by sight, well enough to say “Gidday” when we bumped into them in the street, but the only one whose name I knew was Bruce Thompson, with whom I went for a ride a few weeks before the last topdressing DC-3 (ZK-BBJ) was retired from spreading superphosphate. Many years before, I had flown from Napier to Tauranga (via Gisborne) during school holidays in that particular DC-3 when it was with NAC and carrying the name "Skyliner Gisborne". I understand BBJ got abandoned in some shithole in Africa many years later.
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stuart
Leading Aircraftman
Posts: 8
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Post by stuart on Feb 18, 2014 20:57:18 GMT 12
Regarding fertilizer into Oringi in the late 60's early 70's, I recall it was railed to Dannevirke (near Hargreaves Transport ??) and transported to the airstrip by McNicols Transport. A big contract for them.
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Post by kiwiduster1 on Feb 20, 2014 13:39:49 GMT 12
Hi Guys, Well, We are starting to stir a few memorys here, Thanks to all who have replied so far. Delticman, you are the closest to what i remember. As you say somebodys dad will know! There was a truckie who gave the Rural pilots a hard time about their ability to spread fert! He was often offered a trip to sort his ideas. No way was he going in one of those flying things. A plot was hatched and at one of the usual after work beers they managed to fill this guy a bit more than usual!!Suddenly he was a bit braver and they managed to strap him into a 180. Well after a turn of the deck and a rapid climb the pilot wrung the poor guy out with much climbing, diving and very tight turns. On arrival back ,door opens and one very ill and disorientated truckie fell in a heap on the ground!! Barry (DOC) Sait was the pilot. Truckie never threw the borax again !!
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