{"id":19936,"date":"2025-09-13T11:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T11:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/19936\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T11:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T11:51:09","slug":"ive-found-a-steam-train-historical-locomotive-discovered-at-whanganuis-south-mole","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/19936\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018I\u2019ve found a steam train\u2019: Historical locomotive discovered at Whanganui\u2019s South Mole"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">Mills said he \u201cstruck something hard\u201d while undertaking a large bulk cut of the sand dunes to allow for the rock revetment to continue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cI continued to dig around the item until the sand started to flow away and I noticed I had found a steel item,\u201d Gabbott said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">Gabbott hopped out of his digger and began shovelling the area to expose more before shouting; \u201cI\u2019ve found a steam train\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIn all my years of operating, I have never found something so awesome and exciting. The buzz that has been flowing through me, it\u2019s just amazing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p><img  alt=\"The Skunk later worked on the line between Palmerston North and Whanganui from 1878.\" class=\"article-media__image responsively-lazy\" data-test-ui=\"article-media__image\"\/>The Skunk later worked on the line between Palmerston North and Whanganui from 1878.<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">The project archaeologist has confirmed that, since the location is post-1900s, it is not considered an archaeological site.<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">The Skunk is believed to have been left on site  after the build of the original South Mole in the early 1900s.<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/whanganui-chronicle\/news\/work-to-repair-whanganuis-north-mole-is-in-full-swing\/KHS7ORXWLTIBZ5CND7ALXJ5A7A\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/whanganui-chronicle\/news\/work-to-repair-whanganuis-north-mole-is-in-full-swing\/KHS7ORXWLTIBZ5CND7ALXJ5A7A\/\">Te Mata P\u016baua member and site leader Kahurangi Simon<\/a> said the locomotive holds significant historical value. <\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">SteamRail Whanganui has registered its interest  for future care of The Skunk. <\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">Simon said the collective focus is to determine how to safely remove the locomotive without causing further degradation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">Simon said information was shared with them by the late <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/whanganui-chronicle\/news\/potonga-neilson-birth-not-beginning-for-all-of-us\/Q35LND6S5ISMEAUGJT7T3CZC4M\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/whanganui-chronicle\/news\/potonga-neilson-birth-not-beginning-for-all-of-us\/Q35LND6S5ISMEAUGJT7T3CZC4M\/\">Potonga Neilson<\/a> and other local historians about the possibility of uncovering the locomotive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cTo find Skunk is amazing. It\u2019s not every day a piece of history like this emerges from the dunes,\u201d Simon said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">\u201cIt is now our responsibility to carefully consider the next steps.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">SteamRail Whanganui has been invited to the site to help determine the historic locomotive\u2019s future.<\/p>\n<p class=\"BykrjImGEgsVna\" style=\"display:none\">Fin Ocheduszko Brown is a multimedia journalist based in Whanganui.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mills said he \u201cstruck something hard\u201d while undertaking a large bulk cut of the sand dunes to allow&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19937,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1975,1558,14647,1874,21081,21080,21082,21084,111,43,139,69,1240,3448,11685,21085,21083],"class_list":["post-19936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-at","tag-been","tag-discovered","tag-found","tag-historical","tag-ive","tag-locomotive","tag-mole","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-south","tag-steam","tag-train","tag-unearthed","tag-whanganuis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19936"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19936\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}