Rarotonga Steam Railway

The Rarotonga Steam Railway was a short tourist railway on Rarotonga in the Cook Islands.[1]

History
Avarua. Tracks on the wharf around 1914. Photo by George Crummer.

Around 1914 the Union Steam Ship Company of New Zealand had railway tracks in Avarua's wharf. There was no railway line in operation on the Cook Islands until the beginning of the 1990s. In 1991 or 1992 resident of Rarotonga, Tim Arnold, a descendant of Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, purchased a steam locomotive in Poland and brought it to Avarua.[2] It was working steam locomotive; a 750mm gauge Polish 0-8-0. In Poland, it was Px48-1741.[3] It was built in 1951 by the Pierwsza Fabryka Lokomotyw w Polsce Fablok in Chrzanów, Poland with the serial number 2126.[4]

Locomotive Px48-1919 in Poland, Stare Bojanowo.

The railway is in need of repair, and as such is no longer in working condition.[5]

The locomotive and other equipment are stored on the island awaiting possible further use. There is a proposal to transfer the unused locomotive to the new narrow-gauge railway near Lake Wakatipu in New Zealand.

The Px48-1741 steam locomotive was used in Poland on the local railways in Krośniewice, Kaliska and Żuławska.

References
  1. "Steam in Asia (East) 2011". Archived from the original on 23 April 2012. Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  2. Steam in the Cook Islands The International Steam Pages
  3. "Steam in the Cook Islands". Retrieved 14 August 2011.
  4. Preserved Foreign Steam Locomotives in New Zealand.
  5. "No Steam in the Cook Islands..." www.internationalsteam.co.uk. Retrieved 12 December 2019.

21°12′25″S 159°46′15″W

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