Rarotonga Steam Railway
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The Rarotonga Steam Railway was a short tourist railway on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.[1]
Around 1914 the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand had railway tracks in Avarua's wharf.
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There was no railway line in operation on the Cook Islands until the beginning of the 1990s. In 1991 or 1992 a resident of Rarotonga, Tim Arnold, a descendant of Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, purchased a working steam locomotive in Poland and brought it to Avarua.[2] It was a 750 mm (2 ft 5+1⁄2 in) gauge Polish 0-8-0. In Poland, it was Px48 [de]-1741.[2] It had been built in 1951 by the Pierwsza Fabryka Lokomotyw w Polsce Fablok in Chrzanów, Poland, with the serial number 2126,[3] and used on the local railways in Krośniewice, Kaliska and Żuławska. Arnold laid about 170 metres of track on his family property.[4]
The railway is in need of repair, and no longer in working condition. The locomotive and other equipment are stored on the island awaiting possible further use. There is a proposal to transfer the locomotive to the new narrow-gauge railway near Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand.[4]
References
- ↑ "Steam in Asia (East) 2011". Archived from the original on 23 April 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
- 1 2 "Steam in the Cook Islands". The International Steam Pages. Retrieved 13 July 2025.
- ↑ "Preserved Foreign Steam Locomotives in New Zealand". Archived from the original on 18 January 2017. Retrieved 10 December 2014.
- 1 2 "No Steam in the Cook Islands..." The International Steam Pages. Retrieved 13 July 2025.
21°12′25″S 159°46′15″W / 21.20694°S 159.77083°W / -21.20694; -159.77083