Facing the AB745 after 50 years

Flashback to July 16, 1956, 1.28am.
The weather had been atrocious, a warning had been put through to Engine AB745 that an upcoming section of track was bumpy, they pushed on, all the crew wanted to get home.
Despite slowing their speed, the AB745 tumbled off the Naumai Park crossing of High Street Hawera, falling 50 feet, only to be stopped by a tree.
The driver, Fred Price, was pinned under masses of mud. Fireman (person operating the coal-fuelled engine), David Marshall, was the first to him, dragging him from the mud and preventing him from further injury.
Fast forward to 2007 where David Marshall was reunited with the engine for the first time since it de-railed.
In Stratford to learn more about a restoration project on the engine, David's memory of the night is impeccable, recalling every last detail.
"We would have been going 25 mph when we went over. There was nothing underneath us and the locomotive fell a fair few feet. I remember seeing Fred covered in mud. All I could see was a hand waving out. His arm was wrapped around a steam pipe and was burnt badly. I only spent a few days in hospital after, but Fred was in for awhile."
Both David and Fred, though physically scathed from the crash, re-took positions at the railways after their recovery. David retired off the railways 18 years ago.
As for the AB745&.it is now a rusted, buckled mass of metal, having suffered years at the mercy of the elements, only being removed from the crash site in 2002 to Waitara.
It now sits in the old goods shed at the Stratford Railway Station and it's future is looking a little brighter.
David's impression of the engine after not seeing it for more than 50 years was of subdued emotion, but staying light-hearted he continued to tell stories of the railway to the Stratford Press.
The Taranaki Steam Locomotive Trust has taken the AB745 under their wing and after moving the engine to Stratford (a task that required a 50-tonne crane and two large trucks), the group established an organisation that will focus on its restoration. They hope to have the project done within seven years, but it a massive undertaking and will take a particularly dedicated group of individuals to get the AB745 back on track.