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Railways of New Zealand A Journey Through History by Geoffrey B Churchman & Tony
Railways of New Zealand A Journey Through History by Geoffrey B Churchman & Tony Hurst
Soft Cover
220 pages
Copyright 1990
CONTENTS
Introduction 7
New Zealand land and people 10
PART ONE Development 12
1 A network takes shape 14
2 Down at the station 72
3 Life on board 76
4 Monarchs of the road Railways Road Services 83
5 Bush tramways 88
PART TWO The system 92
6 Northland 94
7 Auckland and Waikato 101
8 Bay of Plenty 107
9 North Island Main Trunk 120
10 Taranaki and Wanganui 131
11 Hawkes Bay and Gisborne 143
12 Wellington 151
13 Nelson and Marlborough 172
14 Canterbury 178
15 Across the alps the Midland line 184
16 Westland 188
17 Otago 199
18 Southland 208
19 Steam lives on 214
Index 220
Bibliography and Acknowledgements 224
INTRODUCTION
It is easy today to overlook the fundamental role that the railways have had in the development of New Zealand. Today cars, trucks and aircraft dominate everyday life, while unobtrusive and largely unnoticed, the railways are taken for granted. For the early settlers, however it was a very different situation. Railways were seen as essential if New Zealand was to become anything more than a collection of isolated ports around the long coastline. Early construction was in the hands of the individual provinces and although some grand projects were announced, very little was actually constructed. By 1870, only 74 km of track had been opened built, as in Australia, with three different gauges.
Fortunately railway construction was taken over and co-ordinated from this stage onwards by central government and in the next 10 years a further 1,900 km of track was opened for traffic on the adopted national 1,067 mm (3'6") gauge. Sir Julius Vogel's vision of a network of trunk lines throughout the country was slowly taking shape. Limited resources, depressions, and an extremely difficult topography, however, saw to it that it was well into the present century before some of the most important lines were completed, examples being the North Island Main Trunk (1908), the Midland Line (1923), Napier to Gisborne (1942), Westport to Inangahua (1943) and the northern part of the South Island Main Trunk (1945).
Eventually by 1952 the network had reached its zenith at some 5,700 km but by this stage the role of the railways was starting to change. The effect of this role change can be seen by comparing the maps on pages 8 and 9 with those on pages 222 and 223. Despite the shedding of some 1,700 km of branch lines in the last 40 years, more train tonne-kilometres are run today than at any time in the 1950s and the railways are still the nation's biggest freight mover.
The statistics today are still impressive more than 350 locomotives, 10,500 goods wagons, 180 tunnels and 2,600 bridges and viaducts, but for many enthusiasts, true railroading in New Zealand ended with the withdrawal of the last Ka and Ja steam locomotives from regular service two decades ago.
The object of this book is to tell the story of the Railways of New Zealand. Of necessity the story has had to be condensed. To cover it all comprehensively would require a volume many times the size of this one. The story is told not only with words but with photographs and again this has not been easy. The late Derek Cross, a British geologist and famous railway photographer once described New Zealand as a railway photographer's dream. In the 1950s this was largely true trains were slow, mostly ran during the day and there was plenty of variety. The reality now, however, is that low density traffic together with the vagaries of topography, weather and light conditions make railway photography in New Zealand a difficult and often frustrating exercise. The photos reproduced in this book have been chosen from over 150,000 scenes from some of the country's best railway photographers.
This book is dedicated to the many thousands of people who have been part of the planning, building operation and maintenance of railways over the past one and a half centuries and to the thousands more who have passionately followed the action from the trackside and on board. As a poster promoting a narrow gauge railway in the South of France a few years ago put it le chemin de fer c'est la vie the Railway is Life.
Geoffrey B. Churchman and Tony Hurst
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