{"id":251803,"date":"2026-01-26T01:32:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:32:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/251803\/"},"modified":"2026-01-26T01:32:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-26T01:32:08","slug":"after-30-years-art-deco-festival-stalwart-set-for-his-last-steam-train-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/251803\/","title":{"rendered":"After 30 years, Art Deco Festival stalwart set for his last steam train journey"},"content":{"rendered":"
\u201cI love doing it, but I\u2019m finding the body is getting a bit aged now,\u201d he said with a laugh.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just like seeing all the people getting dressed up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bill Town at a previous Art Deco Festival. Photo \/ Supplied<\/p>\n
The Foxton resident started working on railways at the age of 17 in Gisborne and spent the rest of his career on railways and around trains, with stints in Wairoa, Napier and Wellington.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a great life on the railways, it was bloody beautiful.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for steam trains, Town said he \u201cjust fell in love with their noise and all the rest\u201d from a young age.<\/p>\n
He said being involved with steam trains through volunteering with Steam Incorporated had been fantastic, not to mention \u201cthe comradeship of the staff\u201d.<\/p>\n
The father of seven has family in Hawke\u2019s Bay, and is looking forward to celebrating his last festival with family.<\/p>\n
He said his favourite part of the train line was probably the Napier to Gisborne section, which was no longer in use. He said he would love to see it reopened in future.<\/p>\n
The 2026 Art Deco Festival runs from February 19-22.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI love doing it, but I\u2019m finding the body is getting a bit aged now,\u201d he said with…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":251804,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[3589,74,4765,1228,1558,16574,146150,1872,29467,5131,2082,293,296,2203,685,130,3607,111,43,139,69,146151,1551,137548,3448,131,1361,2951,11685,10744,1530],"class_list":["post-251803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-3589","tag-after","tag-annual","tag-art","tag-been","tag-bill","tag-deco","tag-face","tag-familiar","tag-festival","tag-for","tag-his","tag-into","tag-journey","tag-last","tag-more","tag-napier","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-roars","tag-set","tag-stalwart","tag-steam","tag-than","tag-that","tag-town","tag-train","tag-william","tag-years"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251803","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=251803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/251804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}