After a few days hiatus (June 2016) and a lot of fiddling I have updated the maps of Ferrymead. These maps now include all known past and present historical data as well as showing all of the different rail lines that have been at the site in the last 50 years. And now it’s time…

Work has been slow the past couple of weeks (June 3016) due to some work needed on my PC which took all of last weekend which included reinstalling Linux. Also there was a lack of satisfactory progress because of all the work needed to fix up maps of stations in Christchurch. Because of this I…

So now I have detailed down to 138 km which is just north of Orari and here is today’s Mid Canterbury history lesson.  Hinds is the next major station still open south of Ashburton today. It is just a crossing loop although I have yet to draw that loop onto the map, a clue is…

Orari Orari is at 141 km. It was finally closed in 1981 being at a location with only a small population which meant it had no chance once the rail freight monopoly was removed. It is notable today for having the station building still on the site just adjacent to the main highway, now used…

Early 1980s shot of Arundel showing the new bridge, and clearly enough where the old one was, including the cutting down into the riverbed and approach from the north side. Even today some of the piles are still visible at the south side, but the north side is now obscured due to land reuse. Hinds…

Since I have discovered that between them, LINZ and Canterbury Maps have excellent contemporary aerial coverage of the MSL, I have taken the opportunity to map in some of the stations that I had already covered in previous posts. Fairton Freezing Works is immediately north of Ashburton. The railway station was first known as the…

Washdyke at 165.6 km is only a little south of Seadown and is the main industrial area for Timaru. The siding shown to the right was pulled up some years ago and the industry it served is unknown at present.    Going out to the left in this picture is what used to be the…

The bridge across the Otaio River (Bridge 105) north of Makikihi was rebuilt during 2014-15 on a new alignment directly to the east of the existing bridge. All parts of the old bridge were removed after traffic transferred to the new bridge. Studholme had significance as the junction of the branch line to Waimate until…

This is the part that was going to be quite tricky to do because the tracks needed to be traced from the much sharper and clearer LINZ aerial photography of Timaru (which has a resolution of 0.075 metres, much better than Google Earth has ever had of the area). The problem was how to get…

Here is an aerial photo of the Dunedin railyards with the existing drawn map superimposed onto it. There are some adjustments to be made which include drawing in all the yard tracks.