New Zealand Rail Maps

Category: Main South Line

  • MSL Branches [3C]: Springburn Branch 3

    As a result of the work undertaken at Archives New Zealand over the past couple of weeks I now have a pile of info about the Springburn Branch. The next stage is like Methven to go through it all. I have been busy with other stuff for the past week or two and still have…

  • MSL Branches [3B]: Springburn Branch 2 / Project website update

    I have started researching the Springburn Branch today. This will be a quick project like the Methven one, with only three morning sessions to look at 103 files. It will take in the latter day history of the line as well as all of the technical information such as the layouts of each station yard,…

  • Project update

    Quick update as to where things are up to right now. I was busy over the weekend doing some local transport activism so there hasn’t quite been the expected progress. However I expect to have the Methven branch tiles finished today ready to begin mapping and also push on with the Otago Central Railway at…

  • MSL Branches [2F]: Methven Branch 6 / MSL Branches [3A]: Springburn Branch 1

    So two posts in one. The Methven Branch research is complete and I now have around 500 pages captured to go through for each station on the branch as well as Rakaia. This means I have at least one layout diagram for every station (however I think there is one station I didn’t get any…

  • North Island Main Trunk [5]: Johnsonville-Tawa 5 / Methven Branch / Otago Central Railway

    So another set of proofs for the Tawa Historical Society below. Meanwhile everything else is sort of progressing. A lot of map drawing time lately has been taken up on researching the Methven Branch. I haven’t actually drawn anything for branch maps yet, and I just discovered I need to redo most of the aerial…

  • MSL Branches [2E]: Methven Branch 5 / Otago Central / Wellington-Tawa

    This is really just a quick catchup as I have been busy with various things and not much actual map work has been done in the last few days. On Friday morning I had a trip into Christchurch Archives to look at Methven Branch stuff. As they are only open half days and have been…

  • MSL Branches [2D]: Methven Branch 4 – Rakaia 2

    Here is another complete set of pictures of Rakaia. There are three sets in total, from north to south, and in order, each set covers 1942, 1974, 1984 and 2012.

  • MSL Branches [2C]: Methven Branch 3 – Rakaia

    Above is the Rakaia station as seen in 1942. There was a freight yard (to the right) and a passenger platform (to the left). Methven Branch passenger trains left from the western (in this case upper) side of the island platform, while the main line was on the eastern side (lower). Note the turntable tucked…

  • MSL Branches [2B]: Methven Branch 2

    The last few days have been spent working in one single Gimp project containing the tiles for all the stations on the Methven Branch, together. At the same time, lists of NZR files for every station have been collated to research at Christchurch Archives as the hoped for set of plans of the station layouts…

  • MSL Branches Series: MSL Branches [2A]: Methven Branch 1

    For this series on MSL branches the articles will be numbered by branch, hence why the first post starts at series 2. Southbridge / Little River is 1, Springburn is 3, Fairlie is 4, Waimate is 5, Kurow is 6, Ngapara / Tokarahi is 7, Dunback / Makareao is 8, Port Chalmers / Walton Park…