SUMMARY HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRANCH RAILWAY LINES IN
NEW ZEALAND
GENERAL
European settlement in New Zealand (post 1840) developed around coastal sites chosen because of their access to navigable water. Coastal settlements were the norm, with only especially hardy souls venturing further inland. The first railway lines almost all began at a port from where wool and other primary products from the hinterland could be exported. Most of these rail lines were built to open lands for settlement and economic development rather than being justified on the grounds of the provision of transport. The spread of settlement tended to follow the growth of the railway.
VOGEL’S VISION
In 1870 when Julius Vogel became the Colonial Treasurer, there were only 74 kilometres of railway operating throughout the country, most of this in the provinces of Canterbury and Southland. Vogel, however, had a vision which relied on borrowing £10 million to build the a branch line network at the lowest feasible cost. This was a vast sum of money – today it would be the equivalent of at least 1 billion New Zealand dollars. Vogel planned for the lines to be built by either public or private developers, to generate sufficient return to justify the debt load. He applied a financing model which had worked, to a greater or lesser extent, in the United States, where railways were forging new routes across that vast continental mass.
One of Vogel’s key assumptions was that railways could be of relatively light and cheap construction, using a narrow gauge so that rolling stock in turn would also be light and cheap to purchase or build, and able to cope with tight curves the New Zealand terrain would require. His vision was also the reason that a country with a small population and limited resources could afford to build so many rural branch lines to open up farming areas for settlement.
IMMIGRATION AND PUBLIC WORKS ACT
Vogel’s e Immigration and Public Works Act 1870 allowed for the purchase of 2.5 million acres of land and at least £7.5 million pounds for railways construction. The same act created the Public Works Department to be the government agency to supervise the construction of most of the national rail network. Legislation was also passed to allow private companies to build railway lines, and several were constructed by this means.
The object of the Act was to build roads and railways and to promote immigration. A broader aim was to unite separate and isolated settlements into one nation.
The patterns of railway development differed between the North and South Islands, proceeding apace in the former and taking longer to develop throughout the latter.
SOUTH ISLAND
The South Island was the economic powerhouse of New Zealand for the first 60 years or so after European settlement began, more particularly the provinces of Otago/Southland and Canterbury. These provinces were also the most heavily populated. The southern provinces had the resources (wool, gold and coal) to begin and then expand railway links. The terrain to be opened up was mostly fairly easy. Initially, the three main settlements – Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill – established rail links to their port facilities at Lyttelton, Port Chalmers and Bluff, providing a direct means of transporting goods to and from seagoing vessels.
By 1880 much had been achieved in the South Island. The main trunk line had been constructed from Waipara in North Canterbury to Bluff in Southland Much of the branch line network from the main trunk had been built. In the north and west of the South Island the line from Picton to Blenheim had been built and significant progress had been made on the Nelson Section, whilst on the West Coast short sections from Westport to Ngakawau and Greymouth to Stillwater were operating. Railway workshops making steam locomotives had been established at Hillside in Dunedin (1875) and Addington in Christchurch (1880), and there was a network of other workshops to provide repair and maintenance services.
NORTH ISLAND
The North Island initially lacked wealthy and politically powerful provinces and this was a major factor in the slow rate of intercity main line railway construction. The rugged country and dense bush through the centre of the island slowed the rate at which settlers spread out from the ports. Continuing disputes over land ownership and use between Maori and European also delayed the spread of settlement and the construction of linking railway lines. There was also a different pattern of farm development, and the desire to access the extensive timber resources of the King Country reinforced this.
The North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) was only completed in 1908, construction taking more than four decades before the final rail link between Auckland and Wellington had been pushed through the tough terrain of the King Country and the volcanic plateau region. The economic drivers to construct numerous branch lines were mostly absent, and the greatest effort (and resources) went into the construction of the NIMT. Two workshops that built locomotives opened in 1929, nearly 50 years after the ones in the South Island, indicating the later development of the network in the North Island
For 50 years from the construction of the first major railways in the South Island (particularly the Kingston branch, opened in 1876) train travel was the mass transportation method for the population of New Zealand.
POST WORLD WAR 1
During the First World War (1914-1918) railway construction more or less ceased, resuming after men returned from overseas. Over the next three decades most major towns in the country were connected to the main railway network. As roads improved after 1920 and motor vehicle ownership increased, the role of the rural town changed. Farmers purchased trucks and were able to conduct their business directly with agents and others in larger towns, at their convenience.
The major economic depression of the 1930s slowed railway construction once again, and the only significant work undertaken was the completion of the link from New Plymouth to Auckland via Stratford and Okahuhura to the NIMT.
The Labour Government elected in 1935 pursued policies that favoured railway construction and use. State funds were once again allocated to continue rail construction programmes to join remaining regional centres that had previously been isolated from the national rail network.
Railway construction continued during the Second World War (1939-45). Both passenger movements and freight movements peaked during the war years. Travel by train again became the main way in which the population could move around the country. In particular, troops and equipment were moved to and from training camps by rail and then to ports for embarkation.
DECLINE AND CLOSURES
After the war the railway system was faced with a backlog of under-investment, repairs and deferred maintenance. Declining volumes of freight traffic and therefore uneconomic operation, combined with heavy costs of track and bridge renewal, contributed to branch line infrastructure wearing out and many lines facing closure.
In the 1950s, as the efficiency and availability of road transport increased, goods handled by rail became a smaller and smaller proportion of the total traffic moved in rural areas. In 1953 the rail system reached its maximum length of 5,689 kilometres, but from then on there was a steady decline as branch lines closed. By 2004 there were 4,103 kilometres, a reduction of 1,586 kilometres (28%) over five decades.
In 1962 the rail link between the North and South Islands dramatically improved with the introduction of the Cook Strait ferry service – referred to as “the iron bridge”. This new service reduced freight handling and increased speed for delivery of goods by rail. Coastal shipping services declined dramatically as a direct result.
By the 1970s economic activity was increasingly concentrated in major urban centres, especially Auckland, and in response railway services also concentrated on long-distance haulage between these centres rather than from rural areas to nearby ports. In many cases rural branch lines that survived beyond the 1970s were reprieved from closure because of specific local circumstances, especially those servicing construction of hydro dams in the South Island which required bulk quantities of cement and other products.
OTHER
During the years when railways were the main means of overland transport in New Zealand (roughly 1880-1920) they not only employed many people but also contributed in all sorts of ways to the richness of life for people throughout the country.
Working for the Railways provided career opportunities and until recently it was not unusual for employees to remain for the whole of their working life. Locomotive staff progressed through a strict hierarchy to the very skilled work of engine driver. Station staff moved from one location to another to achieve the next level of seniority, again according to highly structured tiers. The railways required mobility as well as providing the means for it!
One of the consequences of this was the need to provide housing. In the early 1920’s a scheme was brought into operation to provide houses for the department’s employees, with an architectural branch based at head office in Wellington and a house manufacturing factory and a timber sawmill at Frankton Junction (Hamilton). The factory produced standardised cut-to-fit houses. An associated large sawmill cut up logs procured from Government forests. During the first seven years the scheme was in operation the department erected 1,074 houses for its employees.
Station buildings were also standardised, their designs and fittings being codified into a series of “classes”, each with its own set of plans and specifications.
The railways were also used to move the department’s infrastructure from one location to another as needs changed. Station and other buildings were dismantled and shifted to meet changing needs, and whenever possible materials no longer used at one site were taken away for use elsewhere.
The railway system, in all its complexity, was a key factor in the development of New Zealand, and though much diminished in terms of total length these days rail continues to be a key part of New Zealand’s transport network.
NEW ZEALAND
GENERAL
European settlement in New Zealand (post 1840) developed around coastal sites chosen because of their access to navigable water. Coastal settlements were the norm, with only especially hardy souls venturing further inland. The first railway lines almost all began at a port from where wool and other primary products from the hinterland could be exported. Most of these rail lines were built to open lands for settlement and economic development rather than being justified on the grounds of the provision of transport. The spread of settlement tended to follow the growth of the railway.
VOGEL’S VISION
In 1870 when Julius Vogel became the Colonial Treasurer, there were only 74 kilometres of railway operating throughout the country, most of this in the provinces of Canterbury and Southland. Vogel, however, had a vision which relied on borrowing £10 million to build the a branch line network at the lowest feasible cost. This was a vast sum of money – today it would be the equivalent of at least 1 billion New Zealand dollars. Vogel planned for the lines to be built by either public or private developers, to generate sufficient return to justify the debt load. He applied a financing model which had worked, to a greater or lesser extent, in the United States, where railways were forging new routes across that vast continental mass.
One of Vogel’s key assumptions was that railways could be of relatively light and cheap construction, using a narrow gauge so that rolling stock in turn would also be light and cheap to purchase or build, and able to cope with tight curves the New Zealand terrain would require. His vision was also the reason that a country with a small population and limited resources could afford to build so many rural branch lines to open up farming areas for settlement.
IMMIGRATION AND PUBLIC WORKS ACT
Vogel’s e Immigration and Public Works Act 1870 allowed for the purchase of 2.5 million acres of land and at least £7.5 million pounds for railways construction. The same act created the Public Works Department to be the government agency to supervise the construction of most of the national rail network. Legislation was also passed to allow private companies to build railway lines, and several were constructed by this means.
The object of the Act was to build roads and railways and to promote immigration. A broader aim was to unite separate and isolated settlements into one nation.
The patterns of railway development differed between the North and South Islands, proceeding apace in the former and taking longer to develop throughout the latter.
SOUTH ISLAND
The South Island was the economic powerhouse of New Zealand for the first 60 years or so after European settlement began, more particularly the provinces of Otago/Southland and Canterbury. These provinces were also the most heavily populated. The southern provinces had the resources (wool, gold and coal) to begin and then expand railway links. The terrain to be opened up was mostly fairly easy. Initially, the three main settlements – Christchurch, Dunedin and Invercargill – established rail links to their port facilities at Lyttelton, Port Chalmers and Bluff, providing a direct means of transporting goods to and from seagoing vessels.
By 1880 much had been achieved in the South Island. The main trunk line had been constructed from Waipara in North Canterbury to Bluff in Southland Much of the branch line network from the main trunk had been built. In the north and west of the South Island the line from Picton to Blenheim had been built and significant progress had been made on the Nelson Section, whilst on the West Coast short sections from Westport to Ngakawau and Greymouth to Stillwater were operating. Railway workshops making steam locomotives had been established at Hillside in Dunedin (1875) and Addington in Christchurch (1880), and there was a network of other workshops to provide repair and maintenance services.
NORTH ISLAND
The North Island initially lacked wealthy and politically powerful provinces and this was a major factor in the slow rate of intercity main line railway construction. The rugged country and dense bush through the centre of the island slowed the rate at which settlers spread out from the ports. Continuing disputes over land ownership and use between Maori and European also delayed the spread of settlement and the construction of linking railway lines. There was also a different pattern of farm development, and the desire to access the extensive timber resources of the King Country reinforced this.
The North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) was only completed in 1908, construction taking more than four decades before the final rail link between Auckland and Wellington had been pushed through the tough terrain of the King Country and the volcanic plateau region. The economic drivers to construct numerous branch lines were mostly absent, and the greatest effort (and resources) went into the construction of the NIMT. Two workshops that built locomotives opened in 1929, nearly 50 years after the ones in the South Island, indicating the later development of the network in the North Island
For 50 years from the construction of the first major railways in the South Island (particularly the Kingston branch, opened in 1876) train travel was the mass transportation method for the population of New Zealand.
POST WORLD WAR 1
During the First World War (1914-1918) railway construction more or less ceased, resuming after men returned from overseas. Over the next three decades most major towns in the country were connected to the main railway network. As roads improved after 1920 and motor vehicle ownership increased, the role of the rural town changed. Farmers purchased trucks and were able to conduct their business directly with agents and others in larger towns, at their convenience.
The major economic depression of the 1930s slowed railway construction once again, and the only significant work undertaken was the completion of the link from New Plymouth to Auckland via Stratford and Okahuhura to the NIMT.
The Labour Government elected in 1935 pursued policies that favoured railway construction and use. State funds were once again allocated to continue rail construction programmes to join remaining regional centres that had previously been isolated from the national rail network.
Railway construction continued during the Second World War (1939-45). Both passenger movements and freight movements peaked during the war years. Travel by train again became the main way in which the population could move around the country. In particular, troops and equipment were moved to and from training camps by rail and then to ports for embarkation.
DECLINE AND CLOSURES
After the war the railway system was faced with a backlog of under-investment, repairs and deferred maintenance. Declining volumes of freight traffic and therefore uneconomic operation, combined with heavy costs of track and bridge renewal, contributed to branch line infrastructure wearing out and many lines facing closure.
In the 1950s, as the efficiency and availability of road transport increased, goods handled by rail became a smaller and smaller proportion of the total traffic moved in rural areas. In 1953 the rail system reached its maximum length of 5,689 kilometres, but from then on there was a steady decline as branch lines closed. By 2004 there were 4,103 kilometres, a reduction of 1,586 kilometres (28%) over five decades.
In 1962 the rail link between the North and South Islands dramatically improved with the introduction of the Cook Strait ferry service – referred to as “the iron bridge”. This new service reduced freight handling and increased speed for delivery of goods by rail. Coastal shipping services declined dramatically as a direct result.
By the 1970s economic activity was increasingly concentrated in major urban centres, especially Auckland, and in response railway services also concentrated on long-distance haulage between these centres rather than from rural areas to nearby ports. In many cases rural branch lines that survived beyond the 1970s were reprieved from closure because of specific local circumstances, especially those servicing construction of hydro dams in the South Island which required bulk quantities of cement and other products.
OTHER
During the years when railways were the main means of overland transport in New Zealand (roughly 1880-1920) they not only employed many people but also contributed in all sorts of ways to the richness of life for people throughout the country.
Working for the Railways provided career opportunities and until recently it was not unusual for employees to remain for the whole of their working life. Locomotive staff progressed through a strict hierarchy to the very skilled work of engine driver. Station staff moved from one location to another to achieve the next level of seniority, again according to highly structured tiers. The railways required mobility as well as providing the means for it!
One of the consequences of this was the need to provide housing. In the early 1920’s a scheme was brought into operation to provide houses for the department’s employees, with an architectural branch based at head office in Wellington and a house manufacturing factory and a timber sawmill at Frankton Junction (Hamilton). The factory produced standardised cut-to-fit houses. An associated large sawmill cut up logs procured from Government forests. During the first seven years the scheme was in operation the department erected 1,074 houses for its employees.
Station buildings were also standardised, their designs and fittings being codified into a series of “classes”, each with its own set of plans and specifications.
The railways were also used to move the department’s infrastructure from one location to another as needs changed. Station and other buildings were dismantled and shifted to meet changing needs, and whenever possible materials no longer used at one site were taken away for use elsewhere.
The railway system, in all its complexity, was a key factor in the development of New Zealand, and though much diminished in terms of total length these days rail continues to be a key part of New Zealand’s transport network.