| Telefunken Railroad | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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 Tamasese, the indigenous king of Samoa, inspects the railroad | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Technical | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Line length | 8 miles (12.9 km) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Track gauge | Probably 2 ft (610 mm) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Telefunken Railroad narrow gauge railway was constructed in 1914 and connected the waterfront at Apia and a wireless station on Mount Vaea in German Samoa.
In 1914, the Germans began construction of a light railway on Upolu, the main island of German Samoa, to transport building material from the waterfront at Apia to the wireless station. The railway was inaugurated on 1 August 1914, just as World War I began. [1] The railway was approximately 4 miles (6.4 km) long, or 8 miles (12.9 km) including the various branches to the coconut plantations. A petrol locomotive engine, which had probably been manufactured by Motorenfabrik Oberursel for the Telefunken Wireless Co., was capable of hauling a maximum load of five tons at a top speed of 12 miles per hour (19 km/h). [2] [3]
German Samoa was occupied on 30 August 1914 by an expeditionary force sent from New Zealand. When the New Zealand Railway engineers unit of the 3rd Auckland Regiment arrived in Samoa, the line was in disrepair, but a gang of surfacemen, under Lieutenant Christophers, lifted, ballasted and relaid the rails. A frequent service was instituted, and for several days the ‘train’ averaged 30 trips per day between Apia and to Vaea Camp, where the Railway Corps was encamped. The engine was quickly rebranded N.Z.R. and christened A1, but the men missed the omission of the customary whistle of an ‘A’ class engine. Two enginemen were thus requested to arrange to have a whistle affixed to the engine.
It was difficult to re-commission the wireless station because essential parts had been removed by the Germans. The petroleum engine of the Apia master butcher's ice cream machine was confiscated and attempts made to use it to power the station. It turned out to be far too weak. After reinstalling the regulator parts that the Germans had removed, the original glow-head diesel engine started suddenly, but since the regulator had not been set accurately, it ran at much too high revolutions and the flywheel exploded. A part of the flywheel broke through the roof, reached the tower at a height of 75 m, bent it, fell down and amputated the leg of a station worker. The repair of the station had become a matter of prestige for the English, New Zealand and Australian forces. Despite being discrete, the failed attempts to repair the station had not gone unnoticed by Samoans and the reputation of the occupying forces suffered. [4]
The New Zealand railwaymen built additional track to the camps established at Vaea and Malifa. During the occupation, the railway was used for hauling ammunition, ballast and camp material, including timber for the tents and shingle for the roads in the new camps, and at the wireless station. The ‘Apia Express’ was also used by the troops for regular outings on a Sunday when they were on leave. [5]
The rotary engine is an early type of internal combustion engine, usually designed with an odd number of cylinders per row in a radial configuration. The engine's crankshaft remained stationary in operation, while the entire crankcase and its attached cylinders rotated around it as a unit. Its main application was in aviation, although it also saw use in a few early motorcycles and automobiles.
The Samoan Islands were first settled some 3,500 years ago as part of the Austronesian expansion. Both Samoa's early history and its more recent history are strongly connected to the histories of Tonga and Fiji, nearby islands with which Samoa has long had genealogical links as well as shared cultural traditions.
Apia is the capital and largest city of Samoa, as well as the nation's only city. It is located on the central north coast of Upolu, Samoa's second-largest island. Apia falls within the political district (itūmālō) of Tuamasaga.
Upolu is an island in Samoa, formed by a massive basaltic shield volcano which rises from the seafloor of the western Pacific Ocean. The island is 75 kilometres long and 1,125 square kilometres in area, making it the second largest of the Samoan Islands by area. With approximately 145,000 inhabitants, it is by far the most populous of the Samoan Islands. Upolu is situated to the southeast of Savai'i, the "big island". Apia, the capital, is in the middle of the north coast, and Faleolo International Airport is at the western end of the island. The island has not had any historically recorded eruptions, although there is evidence of three lava flows, dating back only to between a few hundred and a few thousand years ago.
German Samoa was a German protectorate from 1900 to 1920, consisting of the islands of Upolu, Savai'i, Apolima and Manono, now wholly within the Independent State of Samoa, formerly Western Samoa. Samoa was the last German colonial acquisition in the Pacific basin, received following the Tripartite Convention signed at Washington on 2 December 1899 with ratifications exchanged on 16 February 1900. It was the only German colony in the Pacific, aside from the Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory in China, that was administered separately from German New Guinea.
Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft AG was a German producer of electrical equipment founded in Berlin as the Deutsche Edison-Gesellschaft für angewandte Elektricität in 1883 by Emil Rathenau.
Samoa Airways, formerly Polynesian Airlines, is the flag carrier of Samoa.
Gnome et Rhône was a major French aircraft engine manufacturer. Between 1914 and 1918 they produced 25,000 of their 9-cylinder Delta and Le Rhône 110 hp (81 kW) rotary designs, while another 75,000 were produced by various licensees. These engines powered the majority of aircraft in the first half of the war, both Allied designs as well as German examples produced by Motorenfabrik Oberursel.
Vailima is the name of a village about four miles south of Apia, the capital of Samoa. The population is 769. Vailima is part of the electoral political district Tuamasaga.
The Grantham rail accident occurred on 19 September 1906. An evening Sleeping-Car and Mail train of the Great Northern Railway, running from London Kings Cross to Edinburgh Waverley hauled by Ivatt 'Atlantic' No 276 derailed, killing 14. The accident was never explained; the train ran through Grantham station, where it was scheduled to stop, and derailed on a set of points on a sharp curve at the end of the platform, which at the time had been set for a freight train. No reason was ever established as to why the train did not stop as scheduled, or obey the Caution and Danger signals.
The military history of New Zealand during World War I began in August 1914. When Britain declared war on Germany at the start of the First World War, the New Zealand government followed without hesitation, despite its geographic isolation and small population. It was believed at the time that any declaration of war by the United Kingdom automatically included New Zealand; and the Governor announced that New Zealand was at war with Germany from the steps of Parliament on 5 August.
The Occupation of Samoa was the takeover – and subsequent administration – of the Pacific colony of German Samoa by New Zealand during World War I. It started in late August 1914 with landings by the Samoa Expeditionary Force from New Zealand. The landings were unopposed and the New Zealanders took possession of Samoa for the New Zealand Government on behalf of King George V. The Samoa Expeditionary Force remained in the country until 1915, while its commander, Colonel Robert Logan, continued to administer Samoa on behalf of the New Zealand Government until 1919. The takeover of Samoa was New Zealand's first military action in World War I.
Wireless Hill is a steep-sided hill with a summit plateau that takes up most of the North Head promontory at the northern end of Australia’s subantarctic Macquarie Island, lying in the Southern Ocean about halfway between Australia and Antarctica. Its highest point is about 100 m above sea level and it is joined to the main body of the island by a low and narrow isthmus that is occasionally wave-washed in heavy storms. Macquarie Island Station, operated by the Australian Antarctic Division and the only permanently populated place on the island, lies at the northern end of the isthmus at the foot of Wireless Hill. The hill is so named because it was the site of an early wireless telegraphy relay station, part of the first radio link to Antarctica.
SS Norwich City was a British cargo steamship. She was built in 1911 as Normanby, and renamed Norwich City in 1919. She was wrecked in the Pacific Ocean in 1929. For many years her wreck was a sea mark on the atoll of Nikumaroro. The wreck is now largely broken up.
The Samoa Expeditionary Force (SEF) was a small volunteer force of approximately 1,400 men raised in New Zealand shortly after the outbreak of World War I to seize and destroy the German wireless station in German Samoa in the south-west Pacific. Britain required the German wireless installations to be destroyed because they were used by Vizeadmiral Maximilian von Spee's East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy, which threatened merchant shipping in the region. Following the capture of German possessions in the region, the SEF provided occupation forces for the duration of the war. Australia provided a similar force for the occupation of German New Guinea.
Alfred James Tattersall was a New Zealand photographer, who lived in Samoa for most of his life and contributed a significant collection of images of the Pacific Island country and its peoples during the colonial era.
Western Samoa Mandate, then Western Samoa Trust Territory, officially Territory of Western Samoa was the name of Western Samoa during its civil administration by New Zealand between 1920 and Samoan independence in 1962. Six years earlier, German Samoa was captured by New Zealand forces shortly after the outbreak of World War I, but it would not be formally annexed by the British Empire until then.
Robert Logan was an officer in the New Zealand Military Forces who served in the First World War as the Military Administrator of Samoa.
Donald William Rutledge, OBE JP, 7 August 1891 – 1956, was an ANZAC who served for New Zealand during World War I in Samoa, Gallipoli and France. He was born in Dunedin, eldest son of Barret Rutledge and Elizabeth Donaldson.
