So work is still happening to prepare for a webmaps update, as previously flagged. This is running a bit behind because we are all so busy at this time of year, of course. As such, it may be into next year before the site is actually updated, but it will still be flagged as a 1 January 2024 date of updating. The work needed to get the webmaps capture project up to speed is a lot more intensive than first considered because in every one of the 12 projects there are 9 layers that have to be modified with a new View field that represents individual views that can be represented. This field is not relevant to webmaps, but then in the webmaps capture project the new version of the layer has to be linked in and its styles copied over, so there are numerous manual steps to be completed before the capture is ready to take place. At the moment, the conversion work on several projects is not complete, and there is also the necessity of completing the reorganisation of the volumes according to the new volume structure that was introduced at the start of this year and has several minor adjustments since.

There is also some work going on at present with the Otago Central Branch to check over some parts of it, and the Dunedin to Mosgiel section of the Main South Line is being looked at because an author of a minor publication has requested some information about the duplication of the railway through there just over a century ago. So a trawl through Archives New Zealand’s collection of scanned plans has turned up some interesting finds to add some detail to the existing maps and make corrections where they are needed. This means more detailed plans of the original Wingatui Station (slightly south of the present site) and probably better maps of the current site can be drawn, as well as extra detail of the other stations like Caversham and Cattleyards where they are far enough away from later station locations. It would be much harder to represent detail for Kensington, Green Island and Abbotsford because there was very little if any separation between old and new sites – for the most part, these stations were more or less rebuilt on the same sites with just a change of elevation. The biggest aspect of the whole deviation was the raising of the line from Dunedin Station to South Road, Caversham. From that location the line was lowered to the new Caversham Tunnel which itself was at a lesser altitude than its predecessor. The line is more or less at surface level through Burnside and then lowers again as it passes through Abbotsford and approaches the later Wingatui Tunnel, then it comes out at much the same level at Wingatui as original. So a number of different techniques were used to effect the level crossing eliminations. This involved raising the line to pass over major roads up to South Road, where there was already an overbridge, and then lowering it to pass effectively below the suburb of Caversham, where for the most part the railway was in a cutting with numerous overbridges linking the two sides of the suburb.