Category: Otago Central Railway
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ProjectDev: Ensuring correct distances on maps
When it comes to rail maps, we have things like stations that have distances associated with them, and marking the correct distances is a pretty important facet of designing maps. When the Quail Atlas came out in the third and fourth editions, it was metricated from the first two editions which were produced in the…
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Main North Line [3]: Clarence
I’m going to go a bit out of sequence here and put Clarence into the mix while also talking about some other things. I had to reinstall the computer that I do the maps on (it was updated to Xubuntu 17.10 which is actually a beta version), this let me update Qgis 2.99 to the…
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Otago Central Railway [31E]: Article Part 1 / Alexandra aerial photos
Well as you can see it has been a couple of weeks since posting, I have been busy talking to people and looking at a few things. I am seriously having a look at whether to get some more aerial photos to update the knowledge I have of Alexandra yard, but this will just be…
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Otago Central Railway [31D]: Alexandra 4
So here again is the oil company siding 1959 with some wagons actually in it. This looks like the Caltex star. The first site (leftmost in the top photo) is now Transworld, a transport company. In this 2013 Streetview, you can see the building to the right is the same as one of the buildings…
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Otago Central Railway [31B]: Alexandra 2
So I will shortly draw up the map for Alexandra, in the meantime here are some photos. This one is from Weston Langford and it shows Alexandra in January 1964. We can see the goods shed did not have an internal track like most sheds did. Instead, the wagons were unloaded under a verandah outside.…
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Otago Central Railway [30A]: Galloway
Galloway was a small country station in the midst of the Galloway flats. There seems to have been limited facilities provided at the station which had just a lean-to building provided with a goods section and a ladies waiting room (as it was originally titled). However it was sited on a platform, as we know…
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Otago Central Railway [29A]: Chatto Creek
Chatto Creek was an interesting station because of the ballast pit at the eastern end, as otherwise there was little to distinguish it from a horde of other small country stations with similar (basic) facilities. Geographically, Chatto Creek was at the foot of the Tiger Hill which got the line through some hills down the…
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Otago Central Railway [28A]: Omakau
Omakau was at 178.56 km from Wingatui and its importance developed from becoming the railhead for two years during 1904-1906. It remains a service centre for the area and the station remained open until the line closed in 1990. Omakau’s relative prominence in railway terms can be seen by the size of the station building…
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Otago Central Railway [27]: Lauder
Lauder is the western entrance to the Poolburn (actually Idaburn) Gorge. Just as Auripo is the eastern entrance. I have pulled out all the stops today to get this station drawn up in record time. With four stations left to draw it could be the maps will only take a week or two to finish.…
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Otago Central Railway [26A]: Auripo
Auripo is a pretty easy station to draw because the chainage only shows the loop at this location. The shelter shed and loading bank have been marked in approximately based on the photo from D&E page 44 but no other detail of them is to hand. Overview of Auripo station. Closeup approximate location of major…