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A MOTAT to Zoo tram, Auckland, 2006. The tram is a W2 class Melbourne tram, number 321.

The Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT) is a museum located in Western Springs, Auckland, New Zealand. It is located close to the Western Springs Stadium, Auckland Zoo and the Western Springs Park. The museum has large collections of civilian and military aircraft and other land transport vehicles. An ongoing programme is in place to restore and conserve items in the collections. This work is largely managed by volunteers many of whom have been associated with MOTAT for several decades. Since the passing of the Museum of Transport and Technology Act in 2000, new management and the support of full-time professional museum staff has ensured the Museum's future. New public programmes and facilities now promote the collections.

MOTAT 1 was established on the site of a beam engine pump house, which originally provided Auckland's water supply (system similar to a Markfield Beam Engine). The engine is a double woolf compound built by John Key and Sons, Kirkcaldy in Scotland and has been under overhaul since the start of 2005. On Thursday 11th of October, the engine moved under (air) pressure for the first time in 79 years. Work is now continuing on getting the engine to run under steam. A range of other early steam engines are kept in running order including a triple expansion engine, and can be seen running most week days.

Exhibits include trains, trams, vintage traction engines, carriages, cars, buses, trolleybuses and trucks, particularly fire engines, electrical equipment, space flight exhibits including a Corporal rocket and general science exhibits. There is also a 'colonial village' of early shops and houses, including a fencible cottage and a blacksmith shop.

In the 1970s visitors to MOTAT were entertained by the MOTAT Chorus, a group of barbershop singers who later became the Auckland City Of Sails Chorus.

The 'Pioneers of Aviation' Pavilion holds memorabilia of early aviators. The displays include miscellaneous parts from Richard Pearse's experimental aircraft, (together with research supporting the claim that he made uncontrolled hops/flights prior to the Wright brothers), a replica of the craft which was flown and his 3rd aircraft (an attempt at a VTOL tilt rotor craft). The pavilion also holds relics from the Walsh Brothers' flights and school, and a library and archive of transport resources named in memory of the Walsh Brothers available to all MOTAT visitors and via the MOTAT website for virtual visitors. Also celebrated is Charles Kingsford-Smith's trans-Tasman flight in the Southern Cross, Jean Batten's England - New Zealand flight and later record breaking efforts (her Percival Gull is exhibited at Auckland International Airport). The larger civil aviation exhibits continue over at MOTAT 2 with displays relating to the Pan American Airways and Imperial Airways flying boats of the late 1930s and TEAL flying boats of the 40s and 50s.

The Road transport collection rotationally displays in excess of 100 cars, trucks, motorbikes and emergency vehicles. Some of the iconic vehicles in the collection include one of the first Trekka utility vehicles, New Zealand's only homegrown production vehicle built between 1966 and 1973, based on Czechoslovakian Skoda engines and chassis. Also a 1960s Cooper Climax race car, an early American Brush Motor Car Company runabout and an International horseless carriage, an Austin Motor Company beer tanker, the first in New Zealand, and a wide number of other vehicles including one of the Massey Ferguson tractors Edmund Hillary used to lay supply depots for the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, and with which he beat British explorer Dr Vivian Fuchs Sno-Cats to the South Pole on January 3, 1958.

Trams are displayed at MOTAT 1 and operate daily between MOTAT 1's Great North Road Site, via Western Springs Park, Auckland Zoo in Motions Road to MOTAT 2. The extended line was opened Friday 27 April 2007.

An Avro Lancaster bomber at MOTAT 2.

A Short Solent flying boat at MOTAT 2.

Also known in the past as the 'Sir Keith Park Memorial Airfield', named after Keith Park, the Battle of Britain and Battle of Malta hero, MOTAT's aviation collection is on a separate site, neighbouring the Waitemata harbour and Auckland Zoo. It contains memorials to Fleet Air Arm and Bomber Command pilots, radar and other aviation related material, as well as workshops for work on other vehicles, but the main feature is the collection of New Zealand's civil and some Royal New Zealand Air Force aircraft.

There is also a military section which restore and demonstrate a selection of Second World War military trucks, light tracked vehicles and tanks of Allied forces. The military section has regular open days when they display and demonstrate the vehicles and uniforms. ^[1]

MOTAT 2 also has an operational railway with 1 km of track, holt stations and a selection of former New Zealand Government Railways, light industrial locomotives, wagons and carriages.

MOTAT features several major collections of transport vehicles:

Click on the collection name for in-depth artefact information

• Aircraft collection - houses New Zealand's largest collection of civil and military aircraft, all with genuine New Zealand aviation pedigrees. These range from relics from Richard Pearse's first 1903 aircraft and an interpretive replica, as well as a large part of his original third vertical takeoff aircraft. 1930's Fox and Tiger Moths, 1930's Rapide, Short Solent 1940s double decked flying boat, from New Zealand's first International Airline TEAL, a Short Sunderland marine patrol flying boat, De Havilland Mosquito wooden fighter bomber, a restored 1940s Avro Lancaster bomber, Douglas DC-3 Dakota through to a De Havilland Vampire 1950s jet fighter and a RNZN Westland Wasp maritime helicopter.

• Railway locomotives collection - includes seven steam locomotives from a pioneering 1874 NZR F class to the iconic NZR K class steam locomotive, smaller branch line, industrial and logging tank locomotives. Also six diesel, petrol and petrol electric locomotives, including the NZR DA class which was built to replace the mighty K class from the 1950s through the 1970s and became the most prolific mainline locomotive in New Zealand. The collection also includes stations, carriages, wagons and other rolling stock.

• Tram collection - displays and operates twenty one electric, steam and cable trams, support equipment and vehicles from former New Zealand tramway systems of Auckland, Wellington, Wanganui and the Mornington Cable tram system in Dunedin. Auckland's electric tram system was opened in 1902 and the final closure was in Wellington in 1964. An 1883 Dunedin Cable Car trailer is the sole South Island tramway exhibit and there are additional trams from Melbourne, Australia. The museum is one of only four operational Museum and Heritage Tramways in New Zealand.

• Petrol / diesel bus collection - contains a significant collection of historic buses from the Auckland region, including a 1924 White Motor Company 4 cylinder side valve petrol engine, wooden bodied 23 seat omnibus, through a 1954 Bedford SB, petrol engine, 35 seat lightweight wooden body-bus specifically built for Grafton Bridge services, through to a 1978 Mercedes-Benz 0.305 which last operated in 2005.

• Trolleybus collection - this collection contains a representative cross-section of trolleybuses which operated in Auckland between 1938 and 1980. First used on a 1 km department store-operated route in central Auckland from 1938, the trolleybus system later duplicated and then replaced the aging tram system between 1949 and 1956. The trolleybuses were in turn replaced by diesel buses in 1980.

Tramlines were laid within the museum boundaries and trams commenced operation in Saturday 16 December 1967 on sleepered track set under bitumen. The Museum tramline was extended beyond the Museum grounds along Gt North Road and opened Friday 19 December 1980, with further extension along Motions Road to the Auckland Zoo, commencing services Saturday 5 December 1981, using rail set in mass concrete. The tram line has been further extended in 2006-07 to MOTAT 2 to the aviation hangar, a further 636 metres down Motions Road and services commenced on the extended line Friday 27 April 2007. The tramway is dual gauge employing 4 foot and 4 foot 8 1/2 inches gauges, the rail welded and set in mass concrete.

A MOTAT to Zoo tram service operated by Melbourne W2 class tram #321, Auckland, 2006.

Trams are operated daily between MOTAT, along side the Western Springs Park and precinct, past Auckland Zoo to MOTAT 2 and connect both Museum sites. The Museum admission includes the tram ride and casual tram passengers may purchase cash fares on board the trams.^[1]

1. ^ ^{a b} [ http://www.motat.org.nz/collections/military.htm] (from the official museum website)

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Category:Museum of Transport and Technology

• MOTAT - Museum of Transport and Technology (official website)

• Museum of Transport and Technology is at coordinates 36°52′02″S 174°43′40″E / -36.867313, 174.727635Coordinates: 36°52′02″S 174°43′40″E / -36.867313, 174.727635