Built to the New Zealand standard 3ft6in (1,067mm) gauge the line was originally intended to become part of a railway to Auckland via Rotorua, and later as part of an East Coast Main Trunk Railway running from Gisborne to Pokeno by way of Ōpōtiki, Taneatua, Tauranga, and Paeroa. This comprehensive scheme never came to pass, and the branch line it subsequently became was closed in March 1959.[2]
The branch had four names during its lifetime. Initially, it was authorised as a Gisborne to Rotorua line and labelled as such in the Public Works Statement until 1910.[3] From then, while isolated from the rest of the NZR system, it was known as the Gisborne section (later the Palmerston North–Gisborne Line) of the NZR.[2] Once Gisborne was linked to the rest of the NZR network in 1942 the line became the Motohora Branch, to be renamed the Moutohora Branch on 16 November 1950,[4] when the New Zealand Geographic Board decided on this spelling for the line's terminal locality.[5]
Construction
The first report on proposals to link Gisborne and the rest of Poverty Bay to the outside world by rail was made in 1886, but nothing eventuated at that time.[2] In April 1897 the East Coast Railway League was established to press for the development of rail connections,[2] and in 1899 the Government announced that Gisborne was to be connected to Auckland by a line of rail.[6] Work on the line started in early 1900. On 14 January the then Minister for Railways, the Joseph Ward, turned the first sod.[6] The first 20 kilometres (12mi) of the line ran across coastal plains with few obstacles, and the line was opened to Kaitaratahi on 10 November 1902.[7] A Gisborne-Rotorua line from Makaraka to Mōtū of about 37 miles (60km) was authorised by the Railways Authorisation Act, 1904.[8] An eventual connection to the Rotorua Branch disappeared after a 1911 survey to connect the "Gisborne Section" with the East Coast Main Trunk.[9]
Once past this point the line required large river bridging works, four tunnels, heavy earthworks and the construction of two large viaducts 18 and 30 metres high;[10] in 1910 Massey Bros (Auckland engineers from 1901[11] to 1913)[12] won a £3,002 contract for steel girders for the Gisborne-Rotorua Railway on the Otoko to Rakauroa section.[13] Much of the line was built on steep grades of up to 1 in 30, and many tight curves were required. Despite all earthworks being carried out by pick and shovel, and although hindered at times by floods, washouts and landslips and (in the later stages) a wartime shortage of materials,[14] progress continued at a slow but steady pace, and the line was opened to Moutohora at 78.5km by 26 November 1917.[7]
Once at Moutohora, even though over the main divide, there was no easy way for the railway to link up with the rest of the NZR network, as a definitive line for a connection to the Bay of Plenty had never been identified.[15] By 1920, 13 separate surveys had sought a practical route,[15] but the expensive nature of the works required to provide a descent to the Bay of Plenty always deterred politicians from authorising any further extension of the line. In his annual report to parliament in 1916, the Minister of Public Works, William Fraser stated "Construction beyond the Kowhai Road [Moutuhora] Station cannot be put in hand until the route of the mainline towards the Bay of Plenty is definitely located."[9] With the completion of the branch to Moutohora in 1917, construction workers were almost immediately transferred from Moutohora to Ngatapa to continue work on the line south.[9] In 1924, with the Napier - Wairoa section of the Palmerston North - Gisborne Line was under construction and a short section between Wairoa and Waikokopu had been completed; it was decided that year to extend the line from Waikokopu to Gisborne via the coast rather than the longer inland route to Ngatapa.[16] With the passing of time it became clear that Gisborne would be connected to the rest of the NZR system via this coastal route.[17] This line south was finally completed and opened for traffic in 1942.[18]
There was briefly interest in reviving a connection when the East Coast Main Trunk reached Taneatua in 1928.[17] A new survey was undertaken by local surveying firm Grant and Cooke, proposing the new line leave the branch south of Matawai, crossing a saddle near Te Wera and then following the Koranga and Wairata streams to the Waioeka Valley down to the Bay of Plenty via Opotiki, and then on to Taneatua.[19] The Great Depression following the Wall Street Crash of 1929 saw this scheme shelved.[19]
Operations
The 45m curved tunnel 3 on the abandoned Moutohora branch is now part of the Otoko walkway.One of the steel pylons that carried the Otoko viaduct remains in situ.These concrete pylons carried the Rakauora viaduct across the river immediately before the Rakauora station.The Motu river bridge truss remains in place at 38°17′31.89″S177°31′29.7″E / 38.2921917°S 177.524917°E / -38.2921917; 177.524917.A modern house and a stockyard occupy part of the area which was once the Moutohora terminus and railyard. All the cleared land in this image was heavy bush before the railway arrived.
Until connected with the Palmerston North – Gisborne Line in 1942 the Moutohora branch served a purely local function in maintaining access to Gisborne's hinterland. The line had heavy traffic in its early years and consistently showed an operating profit[2] In the 12 months between April 1903 and March 1904, when only about 21km of line were open, the approximately 6,500 people in the district made 47,706 single or return passenger journeys, and 4,464 tonnes of freight were carried.[9]
In 1919-1920, with the full length of the line in operation, over 30,000 tonnes of freight were carried. Road metal from a quarry at Moutohora accounted for 16,400 tonnes of the 1919-1920 total, and continued to be a major component of all freight traffic in following years.[9] Much of the rest of the 1919-1920 freight was timber cut from the extensive forests to which the line provided access. In the same year over 113,000 passenger journeys were recorded,[9] the passenger traffic being sufficient to support a privately leased refreshment room at Te Karaka station.[20] Apart from occasional passenger excursion trains all trains were mixed, carrying both passengers and freight.
By 1930 most of the economically accessible timber had been cut out and sawmills along the line began closing down. Road metal and livestock continued to provide reasonably large tonnages, but with the onset of the depression both passenger and freight operations fell away, with only a small fraction of the district's primary produce being exported.[9]
Even when economic conditions improved rail traffic did not recover to pre-depression levels until the imposition of road traffic restrictions and petrol rationing during the 1939-1945 war years. In August 1942 the Moutohora branch was connected to the rest of the NZR network via the Palmerston North – Gisborne Line, causing a temporary increase to nearly 70,000 passenger journeys on the branch in the 1942-1943 year.[9] After 1944, and the partial easing of some road transport restrictions, passenger numbers and freight fell away dramatically.[19] Because of the combination of reduced passenger numbers and wartime coal shortages, passenger services were withdrawn from the branch on 29 January 1945.[2] They were replaced by a 24-seat New Zealand Railways Road Services bus.[21]
Motive power and train working
For the first seven years from 1902 two D class2-4-0T locomotives provided all the motive power required for both construction and running services. In 1909 they were supplemented by an FA class0-6-2T, and in 1910 the first of six WA class2-6-2T engines arrived, with the two D class locomotives being shipped away at about the same time. As the FA class locos aged they were themselves replaced by WW class4-6-4Ts and BB class4-8-0 locomotives. Finally in 1952 AB class4-6-2 Pacifics were introduced. The large tender on the ABs limited visibility when running backwards, so to ensure the line could be worked safely by these more powerful engines NZR installed a turning triangle at Moutohora station.[5] Previous to this all engines had run smokebox first towards Moutohora and bunker first on their return.
Despite the heavy gradients train working was not as difficult as may have been expected. Most of the uphill traffic comprised empty wagons being sent to transport the district's primary produce back to Gisborne. The heavy downhill trains required more braking power than tractive effort, and special train management rules were in place to ensure a safe descent into Poverty Bay.[5]
Closure
As freight volumes continued to decrease the viability of the branch came into question, particularly as it was now clear the connection with the Bay of Plenty would never be made. In 1952 a Royal Commission was appointed to look into the profitability of branch lines, including the Moutohora branch. The Commission sanctioned the retention of the branch for the time being, but made it clear to the local citizens that it was a case of "use it or lose it."[5]
The development of aerial topdressing led to a short-term increase in freight traffic towards the middle of 1952, as large volumes of superphosphate were required in the district. This did not last and after lingering on for a few more years the end came in 1959, by which time keeping the line open cost more than three times its annual revenue.[5] Despite the activities of a Railway Promotion League persisting into the 1950s to have the line extended to Taneatua,[3] the branch officially closed on 14 March 1959. The last working train ran a month later, on 14 April, bringing out a final load of road metal for highway improvements that would use the railway alignment once the rails had been lifted.[3]
Today
Five kilometres of the Moutohora branch remain vacant to Makaraka, as the industrial siding to service a fruit storehouse closed in the late 80s.[22] Many remains of the embankments, cuttings, bridge abutments and tunnels can be seen from State Highway 2 from near Ormond to Matawai. About 5km of the old roadbed is now the Otoko recreational walkway. Just past the northern end of the walkway, the abutments and one of the steel piers of the 30m high Otoko viaduct are clearly visible to the east of the highway.[23] Between Otoko and Rakauroa the current highway runs largely on the old railway alignment, and the piers of the Rakauroa viaduct still stand about 100m to the west of the highway just before reaching Rakauroa. The Matawai station platform edge can be seen alongside the Matawai-Moutohora road, and the Motu river bridge truss remains in situ. Some railway buildings remain at various places up and down the old line, but there are now no railway remains left at the site of the Moutohora terminus.
Matawhero station building at Makaraka in 2021
The East Coast Museum of Technology is the current terminus of what it left of the Gisborne to Moutohora Branch Line, with plans to restore the Makaraka section and run services with GCVR and ECMoT's own Locomotives.
Locomotive WA 165, which arrived in 1911 to work the Gisborne section (as it was then) has also survived in preservation. Now owned by the Gisborne City Vintage Railway Incorporated, it has been returned to running order and is regularly steamed to provide excursions.
Rail transport in New Zealand is an integral part of New Zealand's transport network, with a nationwide network of 4,375.5 km (2,718.8 mi) of track linking most major cities in the North and South Islands, connected by inter-island rail and road ferries. Rail transport in New Zealand has a particular focus on bulk freight exports and imports, with 19 million net tonnes moved by rail annually, and 99.5% of New Zealand's exports and imports being transported through the country's seaports.
The New Zealand Railways Department, NZR or NZGR and often known as the "Railways", was a government department charged with owning and maintaining New Zealand's railway infrastructure and operating the railway system. The Department was created in 1880 and was corporatised on 1 April 1982 into the New Zealand Railways Corporation. Originally, railway construction and operation took place under the auspices of the former provincial governments and some private railways, before all of the provincial operations came under the central Public Works Department. The role of operating the rail network was subsequently separated from that of the network's construction. From 1895 to 1993 there was a responsible Minister, the Minister of Railways. He was often also the Minister of Public Works.
The NZR RM class 88-seaters were a class of railcar used in New Zealand. New Zealand Government Railways (NZR) classified them as RM (Rail Motor), the notation used for all railcars, numbering the 35 sets from RM100 to RM134. They were the most numerous railcars in NZR service. Their purchase and introduction saw the demise of steam-hauled provincial passenger trains and mixed trains, and was part of a deliberate effort to modernise NZR passenger services at a time of increasing competition from private motor vehicles. Being diesel powered and lighter the railcars were less expensive to operate and able to maintain quicker timetables, although became plagued with mechanical and electrical problems, with a number of the class eventually being turned into depowered locomotive-hauled carriages and reclassified as the AC class "Grassgrubs".
The NZR JA class was a class of fifty-one 4-8-2 steam locomotives operated by the New Zealand Railways Department (NZR). The locomotives were built in two batches; the first batch was constructed in-home at the Hillside Workshops at Dunedin between 1946 and 1956, while the second batch was produced by the North British Locomotive Company (NBL) of Glasgow, Scotland in 1951. To differentiate between the two batches, the locomotives were identified by their builder.
The NZR KA class of 1939 was a class of mixed traffic 4-8-4 steam locomotives that operated on New Zealand's railway network. They were built after the success of the K class to meet the increasing traffic demands of the New Zealand Railways Department. The locomotives first appeared with distinctive streamlining, mainly to hide their ACFI feedwater heater systems.
The New Zealand DA class locomotive were a class of diesel-electric mainline locomotives operated on the New Zealand railway system between 1955 and 1989. Consisting of 146 locomotives, it was the most numerous class to ever operate in New Zealand, with five more than the AB class steam locomotive.
The Wairarapa Line is a secondary railway line in the south-east of the North Island of New Zealand. The line runs for 172 kilometres (107 mi), connects the capital city Wellington with the Palmerston North - Gisborne Line at Woodville, via Lower Hutt, Upper Hutt and Masterton.
The Kurow Branch was part of New Zealand's national rail network. In the North Otago region of the South Island, it was built in the 1870s to open up the land behind Oamaru for development, and closed in 1983.
The Taneatua Express was an express passenger train operated by the New Zealand Railways Department that ran between Auckland and Taneatua in the Bay of Plenty, serving centres such as Tauranga and Te Puke. It commenced in 1929 and operated until 1959.
The East Coast Main Trunk (ECMT) is a railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, originally running between Hamilton and Taneatua via Tauranga, connecting the Waikato with the Bay of Plenty. The ECMT now runs between Hamilton and Kawerau, with a branch line to Taneatua from the junction at Hawkens. The line is built to narrow gauge of 1,067 mm, the uniform gauge in New Zealand. It was known as the East Coast Main Trunk Railway until 2011, when the word "Railway" was dropped.
There have been a number of proposals to build a Taupō Line as a branch railway linking the township of Taupō in the central North Island of New Zealand to New Zealand's rail network. One proposal proceeded as far as the construction stage before being stopped.
The Palmerston North–Gisborne Line (PNGL) is a secondary main line railway in the North Island of New Zealand. It branches from the North Island Main Trunk at Palmerston North and runs east through the Manawatū Gorge to Woodville, where it meets the Wairarapa Line, and then proceeds to Hastings and Napier in Hawke's Bay before following the coast north to Gisborne. Construction began in 1872, but the entire line was not completed until 1942. The line crosses the runway of Gisborne Airport, one of the world's only railways to do so since Pakistan's Khyber Pass Railway closed.
The Marton–New Plymouth line (MNPL) is a secondary main line railway in the North Island of New Zealand that links the Taranaki and Manawatū-Whanganui regions. It branches from the North Island Main Trunk railway (NIMT) at Marton and runs near the South Taranaki Bight of the west coast before turning inland, meeting the Stratford–Okahukura Line (SOL) at Stratford and running to New Plymouth. Construction of the line was completed in 1885, and along with the SOL it provided an alternate route to the NIMT from the SOL's completion in 1933 until the latter was mothballed in 2010. In its early days it was plied by the North Island's first regional express, the New Plymouth Express, but it has been freight only since the cancellation of the last passenger services in 1977.
The Wanganui Branch is a 5.00 km branch line railway in the Manawatū-Whanganui region of New Zealand's North Island. It links Wanganui with the Marton - New Plymouth Line (MNPL) at Aramoho and has been open since 21 January 1878, although solely for freight traffic since 7 September 1959. Another branch line diverged from the Wanganui Branch near its terminus, the Castlecliff Branch.
The Rotorua Branch is a railway line from Putāruru to Rotorua, in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty regions of the North Island of New Zealand. Construction of the line was commenced by the Thames Valley and Rotorua Railway Company and finished by the Public Works Department (PWD). The complete line, 50.5 kilometres (31.4 mi) in length, opened in two sections; on 24 November 1893 to Tārukenga and the final 8 mi 43 ch (13.7 km) to Rotorua on 8 December 1894.
The Ngatapa Branch was a secondary branch line railway 18.5 kilometres (11.5 mi) long that for a short time formed part of the national rail network in Poverty Bay in the North Island of New Zealand. The Ngatapa branch diverged from the Moutohora branch line about 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from Gisborne and ran a further 12.5 kilometres (7.8 mi) across the coastal flat to a terminus at Ngatapa. It was sometimes referred to as the Ngapata branch.
The Gisborne railway station in Gisborne, New Zealand was the main railway station in Gisborne; and the northern terminus of the Palmerston North–Gisborne Line from 1942 when the line was opened, until 2012 when the line was mothballed beyond Napier. The line has been restored to Wairoa but remains mothballed to Gisborne. The station was closed to passengers from August 2002, although it had not been served by regular passenger trains since 1988 when services from Wellington, the unnamed successor to the Endeavour, were truncated at Napier.
The Tāneatua Branch is a 25 kilometres (16 mi) long branch railway line in the Bay of Plenty, New Zealand, running from Hawkens Junction, west of Edgecumbe, to Tāneatua.
The Paeroa-Pokeno railway line or deviation in the upper North Island of New Zealand between Paeroa on the East Coast Main Trunk (ECMT) and Pokeno on the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) was a proposed route with construction started but abandoned. The proposal has been revived in recent years as part of a more direct route between Auckland and Tauranga.
Bromby, Robin (2003). Rails that built a Nation: An Encyclopaedia of New Zealand Railways. Wellington: Grantham House. ISBN1-86934-080-9.
Churchman, Geoffrey B; Hurst, Tony (2001) [1990, 1991]. The Railways of New Zealand: A Journey through History (Seconded.). Transpress New Zealand. ISBN0-908876-20-3.
Leitch, David; Scott, Brian (1995). Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways (1998ed.). Wellington: Grantham House. ISBN1-86934-048-5.
Mulligan, Barbara (2000). New Zealand Rail Trails: A Guide to 42 Ghost Lines. Wellington: Grantham House Publishing. pp.37–44. ISBN978-1-86934-126-8.
Wood, Chris (1996). Steaming to the Sunrise; a history of railways in the Gisborne region. Gisborne, New Zealand: IPL Books, in conjunction with Te Rau Herald Print. ISBN0-908876-92-0.
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