More Than Just A Place of Work

As the title suggests, 

More Than Just A Place of Work  covers not only the engineering history but also the economic, political and social history of Hillside, from its opening in 1875 until its effective closure as a railway workshops in 2012. It details the economic importance of Hillside to rail transport in New Zealand, canvasses the changes in political attitudes towards local manufacturing, and captures what it was like to work there and be a member of the ‘Hillside family’.

Amid the serious coverage of 138 years of manufacturing locomotives, carriages and wagons are some lighter moments, as the following extract illustrates.

Practical Jokers

Hillside had plenty of pranksters over the years. The following are just a few samples.

Fresh-faced apprentices straight out of school would be sent to the furthest part of the Workshops to ask a foreman for a long weight, or to fetch a left-handed screwdriver, or some glass tacks, or a bucket of steam, or a can of tartan paint.

It was not unheard of for someone working inside a locomotive tender to experience the lid suddenly closing, a steel weight being placed on top, and the sound of sledge hammers belting the hell out of the outside of the tender.

One wag used to cause his mates to fly of the handle, literally, by smearing grease on their hammer handles.

Detonators were known to go missing from locomotives in for repair or overhaul, and end up being placed on tram tracks in town on Friday nights.

A man who was always in a hurry to catch the Port Chalmers train after work, once had his tin lunchbox tack welded to the girder he used to leave it on; he grabbed the box but came away with just the wire handle.

Men going about their business in the toilets would have the newspaper they were reading set alight from the adjoining cubicle.

Workers struggling to put on their overalls in the morning would discover that some wag had stapled the leg bottoms.

Adapted and recycled jokes abounded, such as the one about the blacksmith who told the new apprentice: “When I take the iron out of the fire, I’ll lay it on the anvil, and when I nod my head, you hit it with the hammer.”

The result of extensive research, including interviews with former workers, the 240 A4 pages contain 160 black and white and 80 colour illustrations, endnotes and a comprehensive bibliography.

This is Ian Dougherty’s 24th non-fiction book on New Zealand history, biography, culture and society.