K 88 Trust Board

The K 88 Trust Board (otherwise known as the K 88 Restoration Trust) was a legal charitable trust along with The Friends of K 88 (a parallel support group).

The K 88 Trust Board was formed on 23 May 1995 to restore Rogers Ks 88 and 94 and was formally terminated in November 2015.

The plan was: 1. lease K's 88 and 94 from the Ashburton Railway & Preservation Society. 2. To construct a shed as a base and where 88 will be restored. 3. To restore 88 to working order. 4. To raise funds needed 5. To promote the research and recordings in Mid-Canterbury.

On 10 April 1996 the 'K's] were leased to the "trust" from the AR&PS. The Trust Board had purchased the former Ashburton Countdown Supermarket in January 1996 for the 'K's restoration base. Fund raising was well underway before September 1996.

After being in storage for many years at The Plains Railway with a condemned boiler. It was leased to the Trust Board for restoration to working order. This restoration included a new boiler and tender tank. The 1903 belpaire boiler condemned on 24 September 1987 due to thinness in the firebox. The original tender tank was badly rusted out. Restoration commenced in 1997 with the new tender tank being built at Helmack Engineering in Ashburton. The tender tank was copied from its original tank. The building of the newly welded belpaire boiler was planned from the 1903 boiler. Funds were made for $100.000. The new boiler was built by Lyttelton Engineering Limited and cost $151.000. In December 1998 K 95's tender frame and bogies were recovered from the Branxholme locomotive dump in the Oreti River. K 88's original tender frame was badly bent and the bogies were ex-NZR wagon bogies. The building of the new boiler took a year and four months to complete. The boiler was fitted to the frame of K 88 on 1 July 2000 and the tender tank was fitted to the tender frame not long after. A new funnel was made by a local engineer. It was first steamed on 14 November in the same year. K 88 was recommisioned on 30 March 2002 where it showed off her new kaleidoscope that she had worn when she arrived in February 1878. Today K 88 is in active service at The Plains Railway and still is notable for hauling the first inter city express in New Zealand between Christchurch and Dunedin, being one of the original Kingston Flyer locomotives, the first ever locomotive in the world to be restored from a river bed and the oldest ex-NZR tender locomotive in New Zealand.

...
Wikipedia