Oh, water and coal, let the black smoke roll
Down to the Coalgate Station.
For Truman Jones I'll rattle my bones,
Half across creation.
For Truman Jones is the man who owns
All the big black tractions,
His yard he fills with big red mills
And other such contraptions.

Now as a boy in his employ
I steered a big black Fowler
And the man who drove was a big rough cove
By the name of Bill the Growler.


Once old Bill was drinking his fill
Down in the Coalgate boozer
When Greasy Jim challenged him
(the drinks were on the loser)
To hit the pace and run a race
Around the Coleridge run.
Full of pride, and beer beside,
Our Bill he shouted, 'Done!
I'll tell you man, my old steam can
Has never been outrun.'

We were on our way at the break of day,
Four trucks of coal behind us.
But mark my words, as early birds
Jim and his boy outshined us.
For Jim's own lad steered for his dad
—he too was an early starter.
As we topped the ridge from the Selwyn bridge
They were crossing the Hororata.

'Let them set the pace, let them make the race,'
Bill growled into his beard.
'It's coming back the pace will crack,
Of the end I am not a-feared.'
At Logan's trees we met the breeze
A real ol' cold nor'-wester,
And she did blow right off the snow
Your eyes ran tears to breast her.
We chugged away all through the day,
And Jim and the lad did lead us.
We camped that night when the stars were bright,
And still they did precede us.

And on the morrow much to our sorrow,
The wind still kept a-roaring.
When we did arrive at the Coleridge drive,
Jim and the boy were snoring,
But Bill did scheme to save our steam,
And we fell to humping coal.
While the pale moon rode we changed our load
And then did homeward roll.

By the break of day we were well away
And the others yet unloaded.
When Greasy Jim knew we'd tricked him
They say he fair exploded.

Now the Acheron ford was deep and broad,
Bill faced it like a hero,
But our wheels went down and our fires did drown
And our pressure sank to zero.
Bill's eyes went red, but he kept his head,
He neither cussed nor swore,
Though I can say where he spat that day
The grass don't grow no more.
But Mr Jones both outfits owns
And no matter what Jim feels,
He pulls us out with a laugh and a shout
Then he shows us a clean pair of heels.



As we kindle our fire he piles his higher
And rolls off down the track
He grins to his ears, he laughs and jeers,
And waves a rope's end back.
With a murderous frown, Bill screws her down,
Says, 'Let the blighter bust!
I'll put things right ere I sleep to-night
I'll eat nobody's dust.'

I was steering her soon by a pale young moon
And a flicker of lantern light
For Jim and his lad had once been had,
And nobody slept that night.
At the break of day they blocked our way
And steered a zigzag course
From gravel to grass we could not pass;
Bill swore till he was hoarse.
They thought it joke as we ate their smoke
To the corner called 'Shut the Gate',
Then the long way round by bridge and town
Went Jim—not tempting fate.

'It's here we choose to win or lose,'
Wild Bill the Growler roared,
'We'll try our luck, we'll give it a buck!
We'll go down through the ford!'
Will the river be high? Will the ford run dry?
Who knows the Hororata?
Will the river be low? Is it safe to go?
I shout, 'I'll be a starter!'

So shovel in coal, make the big smoke roll,
The Fowler barked like a dog.
She rocked and rolled in that morning cold
As we ran through the river fog.
Oh! the race is run, it's lost or won,
For luck is always fickle.
Jim's just too late, in the Coalgate strait
The river ran a trickle!
So, Truman Jones! He swears and moans
Cos for rules he is a sticker;
But Bill does grin, he loves to win,
And drink old Greasy's liquor!

Lake Coleridge Power Station

The Lake Coleridge hydro-electric power station was built between 1911 and 1914 to supply the growing city of Christchurch with electricity for its domestic lighting, city trams and industrial motors.

Lake Coleridge was created by the moving ice of a glacier pushing up a wall of earth in front of it, then melting. There is a difference in height of 170 metres between Lake Coleridge and the Rakaia River, which made it ideal for the country's first state hydroelectric scheme.

This power station is still feeding electricity into the national grid.

The Coleridge run

Traction engines were used to haul materials from Coalgate railway station, 60 km away.

This race actually occurred: Joe Charles picked up the details of it from old traction engine drivers and steamsmen who had made the Coleridge run.

There was no paved road for much of the way, only clay tracks, with many unbridged streams.

When flood waters made a stream too deep to cross, the men unhooked the wagons, got a full head of steam pressure up, withdrew the hot coals, hauled the engine through the flood with its winch before the pressure could drop, fired up the boiler again, then winched the wagons through one at a time. Those men were tough.

 

Traction engines in New Zealand

Traction engines appeared on the roads near the London Docks in 1859.

The first traction engine in New Zealand was a "Reading" traction engine, imported from England in 1866, along with a threshing mill, for Canterbury wheat-growers Messrs Brown and Hamilton. The Press 13 April 1866

Traction engines were also used in New Zealand for transporting heavy loads, ploughing, logging, milling timber, generating electricity and powering shearing machines. They did not need expensive imported petrol or diesel as motor vehicles did. But lorries and tractors started replacing them after World War One. Motor lorries did not damage the roads like the much heavier traction engines, and the lighter motor tractors did not get stuck when working in paddocks.

I saw a steam engine still at work on an Auckland street in 1961, working as a road roller.