Work has continued at a renewed pace over the past month to move things along in the Project back to the speed of development which has been more typical prior to the last 12 months. This means there has been a lot of progress on the Otago Central maps which are nearing completion.

However having taken a side journey to look at a couple of other areas has slowed down Volume 11 progress in the last month. These breaks are, however, desirable to address requests that come in at various times and to act as a “circuit breaker” to months of working on the same line sections which can get quite boring at times. Hence, Volumes 2, 8 and 9 have been the subject of a lot of work in the last month as follows:

• With the help of receiving a number of different surveys of Taihape directly from Linz, full coverage of this yard plus the sections of track immediately north and south of it are being added. Taihape was a major railway station and depot for many years until the deregulation of long distance freight haulage in the mid 1980s saw its importance greatly diminished and it is now a mere shell of itself. (V2 NIMT)
• Arthurs Pass is another station in Canterbury on the Midland Line that like Rolleston and Springfield has been rebuilt on a different site from where it was originally. With this being confirmed with available plans, additional research for Arthurs Pass to add this new data is being planned for early next year. (V9 ML)
• Mokihinui Mine was the terminal station on the Seddonville Branch and the next station past Seddonville itself. It was closed in 1974. It has been difficult to locate on aerial photos up until now. The Branch north of Ngakawau was closed in 1981 and the remainder incorporated into what is now called the Stillwater Ngakawau Line. (V8 SNL)

Completing all of these is imminent and then the focus will shift back to getting on with Volume 11 again.