In the 1980s,
fellow PN Folk Club member Tim Campbell was
working as a shunter at the Milson Yards in
Palmerston North. His boss annoyed him by
making him continually re-arrange dozens of
empty goods wagons in numerical
sequence. So Tim told the yards' fancy new
computer system to take non-existent loads of
'postholes' on these wagons to now
non-existent rural railway stations that had
recently been closed as the railways adapted
to faster, longer-distance cartage of goods.
It took months to sort out the
paperwork
for the "missing goods"!
C My name's Sam and I'm a
shunter;
Out at Am Milson
I work wonders
As we F shuffle
rakes of C wagons
to and G fro But
C lately it's been
tragic,
For des-Am-pite
computer magic
Those
F goods won't go where
G7 goods-trains used to C
go!
Chorus; For they're
F closing all the country sidings
C dow-ou-oun G
Tearing all the tracks out from the
C grou-F-ou-
C-ound F What
am I going to do?
To C get
these postholes Am
through?
Since they're D7
closing all the G7
country sidings C
down.
"Here's five hundred prefab postholes,
For a Mangaweka farmer,"
I wrote on some empty wagons in the yard.
"But they've built the deviation,
And closed old 'Weka station,
So we took them to Taihape," said the
guard.
I sent postholes through the gorge,
To a fencer at Oringi,
But a phone call came from Dannevirke to say:
"Well, your wagons have arrived,
But we can't find a thing inside!
You'd better make a claim for postholes right
away!"
Then I thought I'd try again,
With some holes to Bonny Glen,
But they only got as far as Marton Yards,
Where they sent them on by road,
A whole truck and trailer load,
Now I've got to pay the double
handling charge.
Chorus
Then a cocky back of Westmere
Said "Me postholes never got here"
Others turned up cracked and broken: clogged with
sand.
That's why from Newman to Okoia
And up back near Mangahuia,
They've gone back to digging
postholes out by hand.
Chorus x 2,
then steam train noises, fading......
NIMT Electrification
The North Island Main Trunk required diesel engines
to haul heavy trains to an altitude of 800 metres,
using much fuel. The oil shocks of the 1970s impelled
the Government to electrify the central mountain
section of the NIMT.
Work was completed in 1988. Before the 25,000 volt
line was strung up, dozens of little-used railway
sidings were removed, the line was straightened, and
the ancient station-master-phone-and-paper control
system was replaced by fibre-optic cables and
computers.
