New Zealand Rail Maps

Category: Main South Line

  • Overlay Webmaps Development Preview – Greater Christchurch

    Good afternoon. Here is this week’s update summary for the NZ Rail Maps Project. So far, in order to aid the development model for the new web site, we have created two different development previews: Volume 1 (North Auckland Line) and Volume 6 (Wairarapa Line). These have reflected several development levels proposed for the maps:…

  • Dunedin City Council Reneges On Mothballing of Dunedin Railways, Now Pushing Ahead With Winding Up.

    As we all know, a few months ago Dunedin Railways was closed down, but the Dunedin City Council voted to mothball it rather than wind it up completely. This, however, seems to have been just a ploy, as DCC is now calling for expressions of interest for people who want to buy the company’s assets.…

  • Project Diary 2019-12-19: Greater Christchurch Maps Update

    In the last few weeks our research has continued of Greater Christchurch maps, branching out into looking into railway housing in Heathcote and Lyttelton. The development of railway housing in large cities is naturally very different from small towns, as these two examples show. We plan also to take a closer look at railway housing…

  • Heathcote Pumping Station Siding & Ferrymead Railway Siding [2]

    Following on from last month’s post about the Heathcote Pumping Station siding, here is an updated map showing the Heathcote Expressway cycleway that is expected to be built along this corridor within the near future. It will cross over the Ferrymead Railway siding and then follow the Main South Line corridor to Truscotts Road.

  • Railway Housing in Greater Christchurch [2A]: Lyttelton 1

    Following on from the discussion in the last article about railway housing around Lyttelton, here are some aerial photos with labelling showing where some of the railway housing was located there. This is preliminary as more research is needed to identify all of the railway properties across Lyttelton as well as in this specific area.…

  • Railway Housing in Greater Christchurch [1]: Introduction

    As we all know, when NZR developed their network, staffing requirements especially in remote locations often required housing to be provided. There are a number of townships in NZ where the amount of railway staff housing was significant compared to the overall community, including several railway towns – Otira on the Midland Line being one…

  • Lyttelton: Then and Now

    Here is a much anticipated post about Lyttelton. However, it is just a brief comparison over 50 years. More in-depth of Lyttelton will follow as soon as we have completed archival research in a few weeks’ time.  Above: Lyttelton Port 1967. Below: Lyttelton Port 2015.

  • Project Diary 2019-11-15: Greater Christchurch Maps Key Milestone

    We are pleased to announce a key milestone has been reached in the Greater Christchurch maps we are producing as part of the NZ Rail Maps project. We have now completed the historic aerial photo mosaic projects for all of Greater Christchurch, that is, the following four sections of railway: Eastward: Main South Line from…

  • Heathcote Pumping Station Siding & Ferrymead Railway Siding [1]

    Recent research has turned up the existence of a siding to the pumping station in Scruttons Road, which is just behind Ferrymead Heritage Park. In fact it is right where the Ferrymead Railway’s siding goes off the Main South Line. The date of when the siding was established is unclear, but the file starts at…

  • Project Diary 2019-11-02: Christchurch Maps

    Our first blog post for November.  Map production this week has been limited to a complex fix for a problem discovered in the Heathcote-Ferrymead maps for 1985. Trying to align two different rail lines in four places simultaneously can be very complex. Cutting the Main South Line out through the back of Ferrymead is a…