Here's a little story about a true event that happened near my home town some 20 years ago.

A goods train derailed in a relatively remote part of the hills north of Dunedin. The alternate lifestylers are fairly thick on the ground in the area, although personally I lived nearly five miles away as the crow flies.

This was a Thursday.

On the train was a wagon containing fridges, freezers, washing machines and clothes dryers from the local whiteware manufacturing plant. Along with about three other wagons, it tipped over and spilled its contents into the paddock the railway line ran through. The insurance assessors were on the scene almost immediately, and the decision was made to leave the three wagons where they were, put the other wagons back on the track and worry about it all at the weekend when the train traffic was lighter. The other problem was the remoteness of the crash site and the roughness of the ground was such that getting wheeled transport in was going to be a problem, and they formulated a plan to build a temporary road up to the tracks at the crash site.

Come the Saturday, they used a bulldozer and pushed a road over the worst of the ground, gravelling it as they went. They got up to the crash site by about lunchtime. Only to find that there wasn't a washing machine, clothes dryer, fridge or freezer to be found. The locals had been up there, in spite of the access problems, and snaffled the lot.

I never did hear what happened after that. There was probably an underground railroad shifting them all out of the area! If it worked, it wasn't run by New Zealand Rail.


The idiot also known as Capfka ...