Napier model train gates stolen: 'They obviously needed them more than we do'

The crew at the Hawke's Bay Model Engineering Society track at Anderson Park, Napier, including president Ross Bates (centre) and Brian Larkin (right), and the bridge (far right).Photo / File

Thieves may have gone a bridge too far in taking two gates from the Hawke's Bay Model Engineering Society's train track at Anderson Park, Napier.

But president Ross Bates, after discovering thieves had taken the gates from their mountings, says someone "obviously" decided they had more need for them than the club did.

The gates, at each end of a bridge, have been in place for years, required as part of the club's safety agreement with the Napier City Council, being closed and locked to discourage people from walking across the narrow span built to add to the attraction of the rides around track, run by volunteers at weekends and on public holidays.

It has been unable to operate during the pandemic lockdown but Bates and club member Brian Larkin were tending to site and equipment maintenance, including mowing the grass in the area around the track on the York Ave side of the park when the theft was discovered on Sunday.

He almost missed noticing, saying he was walking across the bridge and suddenly realised he shouldn't have been, without unlocking and opening the gates.

"There isn't really any damage, they've just cut a padlock and lifted the gates off at each end and taken them," he said. "They obviously needed them more than we do, but it's so pointless."

The club members believe the gates had been taken sometime in the previous fortnight.
Nevertheless, they're a resourceful bunch at the Hawke's Bay Model Engineering Society, and making use of an old gate lying around they were expecting to have two new gates made within a few days.

All that would remain would be for the locomotives, steam engines and carriages to get back on track for reopening after a lockdown now set to enter a fifth week.