Travel by Steam Train - New Zealand Railways Travel Posters, 1940s

 

New Zealand Railways travel poster, late 1940s

So how will you get to Caroline Bay, Timaru for your summer holidays? Why by steam locomotive express of course. Tripping by train may have a different meaning in the modern era, remember the Trainspotting move of the 1990s?

 

New Zealand Railways travel poster for the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition, Wellington, 1939-40.

And now it's February (1940), you can still get cheap fares to travel to the New Zealand Centennial Exhibition in Wellington where you can see the marvellous achievements of our nation over the past 100 years - and catch a rollercoaster or two.

Winiata Railway Station on the North Island Main Trunk Line

Group on Winiata railway station, near Taihape, circa 1910. Unidentified photographer. 

Alexander Turnbull Library

 

Maori Farm at Winiata near Taihape, 1894.

 Photo: Edward George Child. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Drop Me A Line in Taihape, Mail Pick Up on the Main Trunk LIne

Now that KiwiRail has reintroduced a 2 minute stop at Taihape on the North Island Main Trunk Line (NIMT), the former means of dropping off & picking-up passengers at Taihape will no longer be required (see video).

The Illinois Railroad Museum and retired members of the USPO Railway Service show how it was done in the U.S. with mail, rather than people! (Warning to more sensitive viewers: don't be startled by the locomotive horn blasting you off your keyboard).

Mataroa Tunnel on the North Island Main Trunk Line

A man on a jigger on the approach to the Mataroa Tunnel, near Taihape. 

Railway work camp in left background, 1906. Photo: Albert Percy Godber.

Alexander Turnbull Library.

The Mataroa railway tunnel on the North Island Main Trunk Line,near Taihape, 1906.

Photo: Albert Percy Godber. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Taihape Baaaaaaaaaaaaaaack on the Main Trunk Line!

On 19 October 2009, KiwiRail announced that Taihape was being placed back on the list of stops on the Overlander passenger train's schedule on the North Island Main Trunk Line.

Removed from scheduled stops in 2005 as passenger numbers on the Overlander fell, Taihape is back for a one-year trial.

North- and southbound trains will stop for a 2 minute spell.

If you want a cuppa you'll have to be quick. Maybe text ahead to one of the cafes and see if they'll meet you on the platform!

Seriously, though, get off the train for a day or two and experience Taihape. Accommodation has been upgraded from the barky hut pictured in the post below.

Disclaimer: The Taihape Tourist Board and this blogger have no financial or other relationship.

Taihape on the Main Trunk Line #3

Reid Family outside home. George Edward Reid, Annie Reid, and children Myrtle and George, alongside a hut on Toe Toe Road, Taihape, circa 1897. Punga fern trunks supply the walls of the hut with shingled roof. Clearing timber around the homestead. 

Photo: Edward George Child.  Alexander Turnbull Library.

Taihape on the Main Trunk Line #2

 Main or Hautapu Street?, Taihape, 1907-08, about the time the North Island Main Trunk line 

was completed. Photo: Frederick George Radcliffe. Alexander Turnbull Library.

 

Jackson and McCormick's general store, Taihape, circa 1900, fashioned out of corrugated iron.

Photo: Unidentified photographer. Alexander Turnbull Library

 

H J Boughton's General Store with Model T Ford out front, Taihape, circa early 1920s.

Unidentified photographer. Alexander Turnbull Library.

Taihape on the Main Trunk Line #1

 Taihape Railway Station with Refreshment Rooms on right, 

North Island Main Trunk Line, circa 1910.

Photo:  Frederick George Radcliffe. Alexander Turnbull Library

 

R T Batley's Wool Wagon on its way to the railhead, Taihape, circa 1910. McCormick Boot Emporium and Wong You's fruit and grocery store in background. Unidentified photographer. Alexander Turnbull Library

 

Rail Yards at Taihape, circa 1925, signal box in left foreground 

and stockyards to the right of tracks.Unidentified photographer.

Alexander Turnbull Library.

Taumarunui on the Main Trunk Line

Timespanner had this video on her blog recently. Just had to add it here. Peter Cape's song "Taumarunui on the Main Trunk Line" provides the soundtrack to the video. Taumarunui in the King Country was a key town on the North Island main trunk railway line between Wellington and Auckland. Just past Taumarunui is the Raurimu Spiral, an engineering feat enabling trains to haul freight up otherwise insurmountable grades. You can see a model of the spiral in the video.

If you want to sing along with Peter, you can find the lyrics here, with a bit more background.

Though not of the Taumarunui refreshments room, here are a couple of interior shots of what the traveling public encountered in 1910 and 1952 when their trains made a stop for a sandwich and a cuppa. Click on images for a larger view.

 Interior of the Tearooms at Wanganui Railway Station, circa 1910. 

Photo: Tesla Studio. Alexander Turnbull Library

The counter at the Christchurch Railway Station Refreshment Rooms, 
7:30 am, 21 July 1952. Evening Post Collection, Alexander Turnbull Library

The Train Into Town - The Christchurch - Lyttelton Railway Line, early 1900s

Train About to Depart Lyttelton Railway Station for Christchurch, circa 1916.

Before Annie could do any shopping (see previous post), she had to catch a train to Christchurch. In the early 1900s, the quickest, most direct means available was the railway.

The early founders had realised that development of Christchurch and the Canterbury Plains required fast, easy, and economic transport between Christchurch and the Port of Lyttelton. Unfortunately, volcanic activity millions of years before had imposed the Port Hills in between. In a feat of geologic survey and engineering success, the Lyttelton railway tunnel was opened to passenger traffic on 9 December 1867, just some 17 or so years since first European settlement.

Steam locomotive at entrance to Lyttelton tunnel running under the Port Hills, connecting the port with Christchurch. Photo : Albert Percy Godber. Alexander Turnbull Library

In the early 1900s, the alternative to rail was a long, uncomfortable journey over the Port Hills by horse & wagon by the Sumner Road thence in to Christchurch, subject to the elements - dusty & windy in the summer; cold, wet and muddy in the winter.

The car had barely made an entry in the early 1900s, was temperamental, exacerbated by hill work, and still exposed one to the elements. The Lyttelton road tunnel would not open until 27 February 1964 at which time it superceded the rail journey as fastest & most comfortable route.

In the age of steam, however, the rail trip through the tunnel brought with it the "delights" of coal smoke from the smoke stack if unwary passengers had failed to close windows before the train entered the tunnel. Electrification of the line in 1929 eliminated this unpleasant and hazardous experience.

Arrival at Christchurch Railway Station, circa 1910. Alexander Turnbull Library

The Christchurch Railway Station, seen from Moorhouse Ave, early 1900s.

From the Christchurch Railway Station, Annie and her fellow passengers could set out on foot via Manchester or Colombo Street towards Cashel & High Streets, the shopping precinct of Christchurch in the early 1900s. For now, they could also get there by horse-drawn tram, soon to be replaced by electric ones. For the well-heeled or those in a hurry, a Hansom cab (as pictured above) could get them there at a trot.

The city's streets were not yet paved so dust in a Canterbury nor'wester or mud and puddles on a wet day were part of the challenge in navigating the city streets.

Approaching Lyttelton tunnel at Heathcote on the homeward journey, circa 1910.

Home on the afternoon train, Annie's mind no doubt turned to preparing tea and putting her feet up later in the evening, as brown paper parcels tied with string sat in the overhead rack and a tired child or two fidgeted or grizzled beside her.

One Man's Life: Richard Arthur Haydon

"The immigrants ... are a healthy, intelligent class of persons, and are likely in every respect to form good colonists." The Star, 22 October 1883.

This judgement of the Star's reporter on the character and disposition of the passengers recently arrived on the SS Taranaki held particulary true for one of them, Richard Haydon, through the rest of his life in New Zealand.

Disembarking at Lyttelton, it appears he spent some time in Christchurch before heading north. Perhaps it was in Christchurch, that as a government-assisted immigrant, he signed up with the New Zealand Railways.

In an addendum to his shipboard diary, Richard records: "started at East Town [Wanganui] Oct. 7th 1884". At East Town Haydon found employment in the New Zealand Railways' workshops.

Living at Aramoho he became engaged in his work as a railways carpenter and in social life. Within a few years he was chair of the Railways Benefit Club for employees and played regularly for the local Railways rugby and cricket teams.

In December 1887 he married Eleanor Grace Salome Ellis who came from the same area in Devon as he did. Together they would have seven children, their two sons dying in young adulthood.

From Wanganui, the Haydons moved to Dunedin where Richard worked at the Hillside railway workshops. By 1909, Richard had put in 24 and a half years of service in the Railways, attaining the rank of Lead Carpenter earning 11 shillings & sixpence per day.

The family remained in Dunedin at least until sometime during World War I because the family lore suggests that he was a member of a pipe band that farewelled troops departing for overseas service. At least one of their children, daughter Amy, married in Dunedin during the war years.

The Haydons moved back to Christchurch where Richard and Eleanor would see out the remainder of their lives.

Richard finished out his working career at the Addington workshops, the family home being located on Clarence Road that formed the western perimeter of the workshops.

Reflecting their deep attachment to their early life in Devon, the Haydons named their house "Chudleigh" after Richard's home town. Sadly, the house burned to the ground a few years later, necessitating relocation to a new home in Mathesons Road.

Richard Haydon died in Christchurch on 18 July 1927 at the aged of 62, Eleanor surviving him by eleven years. Richard had had little time to enjoy his retirement but he had made his own modest contribution, as many thousands of others had, to the emerging New Zealand way of life.

Richard Arthur Haydon was my great-grandfather.

Richard Arthur Haydon, 1863 - 1927

Richard Arthur Haydon was born in Chudleigh, Devon, England about 1863 but would travel to the other side of the globe as a young man to live the rest of his life in New Zealand.

In August 1883 at the age of 21 he embarked at Plymouth, England for Lyttelton, New Zealand to start a new life. A carpenter by trade, he would work for the New Zealand Railways for the balance of his working life. Marrying within a few years of his arrival, he lived with his family firstly in Wanganui, then Dunedin, and Christchurch, the latter being where he ended life.

Neither famous nor distinguished, he - with tens of thousands of fellow emigrants - left his Old World home for a new one, never to return to whence he came. It was a one-way ticket.

No author or historian, Richard, with relatively little schooling, wrote a shipboard diary of his 1883 journey that has been read by but a mere handful of people over the past 125 or so years. No work of great literary value, it nevertheless leaves a young man's penciled account of his journey that may as well have been to the moon given the technological and emotional "distance" involved.

Travel in the Amuri District, North Canterbury, early 1900s

The Hanmer coach leaving Culverden, early 1900s. The sender writes that motorcars have replaced the coach, postmarked 1913.

Before the railway line was extended all the way to Waiau in 1918 - and to Parnassus in 1917 - the Amuri and Hurunui districts relied on stagecoaches to deliver the mails and passengers to points north of Culverden. The various accommodation houses, later improved to hotel status, provided more than a watering hole for the weary traveler.

Waiau Hotel, Hanmer early 1900s

By the early 1910s, service cars were beginning to replace the coaches but bridging remained a problem in such sparsely populated rural districts.

Departure of Service Cars from Hanmer Springs, circa 1910.

Drowning was a leading cause of accidental death in nineteenth century New Zealand for humans, frequently along with the loss of bullock and horse teams as coaches and wagons got washed away.

Till the arrival of the railway and better roading, bulk commodities such as the wool of the "Amuri Wool Kings" had to be moved by bullock wagons down to the shore to be lightered out to coastal steamers.

Wool wagon - 1880s view - Ready Money Robinson's Cheviot Estate.

Cass - Art, Nature, and the Engineer

Cass, circa 1936, by Rita Angus. courtesy of the Rita Angus estate & the Christchurch City Art Gallery. Transcript of an introduction to Angus' "Cass" here.

As he pulls through Cass, does the loco driver catch the railway shed in the corner of his eye? Does it trigger thoughts of one of New Zealand's best known paintings by one of her best known artists, Rita Angus? Does he muse upon the contrasting vertical and horizontal lines of man-made structures and the swirling clouds and rolling hills? Or does he stare fixedly at the signal up ahead - dare one say it, with tunnel vision - as the on-coming coal train enters the west-bound track of the Cass loop?

Double header coal train eastbound through Cass on a hot summer's day, 2007.

Gone within 5 minutes from this scorching hot, dusty place the trains part in opposite directions leaving behind the mute, solitary shed.

Cass is 116 kilometers northwest of Christchurch in Canterbury. The Midland railway line was extended from Christchurch to Cass in 1910. With the completion of the Otira tunnel through the Southern Alps, between Otira and Arthur's Pass, the Midland line connected Canterbury and the West Coast by rail for the first time. The six day stage coach journey at the turn of the century was replaced by a one day train journey, increasing the flow of people and goods in both directions.

The North Island Main Trunk Line – 1908 – 2008 – Century of Service

The North Island Main Trunk Line (NIMT), the backbone of New Zealand Railways in the North Island turns 100 years old on August 7.

The 630 kilometre line connected Wellington, the capital, at the southern tip of the North Island, to Auckland in the north, providing a land link for the first time that could provide an alternative to unpredictable and sometimes dangerous sea passage between the two main centres.

On the evening of August 7, 1908, the “Parliament Special” left Wellington on the first tripAuckland to greet the “The Great White Fleet” of the US Navy on its around the world goodwill voyage. The journey took 20 ½ between the two cities. It carried politicians and other VIPs to hours, involving several changes of locomotive, and required travel along temporary track in the middle section of the line hastily put in place by the Public Works department.

Construction of the NIMT took more than 20 years. The first sod was turned in 1885 after the Government reached agreement with the Ngati Maniapoto iwi on a right of way through the King Country, an area of the western Central North Island that had remained effectively in Maori hands after the New Zealand Wars of the 1860s.

Massive engineering challenges had to be overcome and much of the work was completed by the manual labour of gangs of workers who lived in work camps under harsh conditions.

The Waimarino plateau between Taumarunui and Taihape presented a particular challenge to engineers as the gradient exceeded the capacity of then existing locomotives to pull a train up the plateau. The solution was a masterful example of engineering design by R W Holmes in the form of the Raurimu spiral, involving three horseshoe curves, two tunnels, and a complete spiral.

Deep ravines also had to be bridged by steel viaducts at Makatote, Hapuawhenua, Mangaweka, and Makohine.

Pakeha New Zealanders were justifiably proud of the engineering feats of the NIMT and their ability to rapidly develop a railroad network in a young country incorporating the newest technology. Postcards of the type shown here were mailed in their thousands back to “Home”, Mother England, bearing messages extolling the achievements of the NIMT, the proof being displayed in the pictures.

The NIMT was officially opened in February 1909 and regular passenger service quickly grew with the time being reduced down to 14 hours for the trip. After World War Two, passenger demand eroded as road transport then air travel outcompeted rail service. Rail freight remained an important traffic on the line. By 2006, passenger service appeared to be near its end but a vociferous public response prevented the daylight Overlander service from being canceled. With the return of the railway system back into government ownership in mid 2008 after an unsuccessful 15+ year period of privatization, passenger service appears likely to continue for awhile yet.

Waiouru Railway Station, NIMT, 1909,

Mt Ruapehu (left) and Mt Ngauruhoe (right) volcano in eruption.

This post is respectfully dedicated to the men and women who built the NIMT and who have kept the line open over the past century. Nation-builders, one and all.