Newspaper Article 1998 – Bruce Fordyce

“It becomes an abiding passion,” says Havelock North’s Bruce Fordyce of his interest in model train engineering and to those who say that “playing with trains is kid stuff” this award-winning model engineer says with a laugh: “I reckon we’re the only sane ones on the planet!”

Bruce’s replica of the 1879 Rogers “Q” steam engine recently won the Canterbury Award for the Premier Model at the International Model engineering Expo in Tauranga – no mean feat given that well over $1 million dollars worth of models were on display and that it would have taken two full days to see all the models in any detail …

Like many boys, Bruce was fascinated by trains as a youngster and a visit to the model railway in the Auckland garden of NZ’s greatest model engineer, Frank Roberts, reinforced this interest.

“I was absolutely rapt with his railway which ran around three sides of his garden, under his house and into a little shed. Later I saw a model of the “K” locomotive that he made for an exhibition in Wellington and I saw him use tweezers to remove a box from the inside tender from which he removed a complete miniature tool set. Unwittingly, I saw something that, to me, looked utterly perfect..” muses Bruce, who taught himself to build model trains.

The Rogers “Q” steam engine picked here with Bruce has been a labour of love from start to finish. He only had one very general drawing and five photographs to go by in recreating the rather flashy-looking engine.

“There were only two of them ever built in America by Rogers and they were shipped out to New Zealand for the Rakaia and Ashburton Forks Railway. Trains were very grand-looking in those days and the American locomotives in particular were quite ornate,” says Bruce, in reference to the brass trims and bright paint work.

“I had to do a lot of research to find out what colours the Rogers “Q” engines were as there was very little documented. I knew that the boiler was clad in Russian iron, but I didn’t know what colour that was until I finally found an eye-witness account which said the colour was a peculiar metallic grey. I have come up with what I call ‘a believable’ colour scheme – it may not be exact but I think it comes close,” says Bruce.

The rainbow-coloured sand dome drew a lot of comment at the Expo – again, this was chosen after reading an eyewitness account by an Englishman living in NZ at the time. It’s stripes of red, green, blue and yellow were described by an early authority on NZ railways, Charles Rous-Marten, as “a bit loud!”, but they look fantastic on Bruce’s gleaming engine.

“Reading and learning as much as I can about the history of these engines gives me a better feel for what I’m doing and when I have totally finished the Rogers “Q”, I’ll get my background information into an accessible form with references so that others don’t have to go through the painstaking process that I have.”

Best-known as the designed and instigator of the now world-renowned Keirunga Park Railway here in Havelock North, Bruce says the personal satisfaction he gets out of building model engines is “fantastic” – especially as it is something he has taught himself to do…