This month the work on Volume 10 specifically for Dunedin to Mosgiel is being brought to a close. Part of this work is to produce some historical maps for an article appearing in the NZ Railway Observer. At the same time a complete set of maps will be produced for the section which will be available for readers of the article to peruse if they want more detail than can be placed in a magazine.

The trajectory which this project has taken this year and indeed in the last 12 months approximately is different from what was predicted prior to that. Whilst there is still an overall goal to update the webmaps section of the site and proceed to complete all volumes of the maps within 7 years, what has actually been carried out in recent times has not followed the suggested route. It would be appropriate to note here that the calendar year of 2024 so far has been one of the most demanding and challenging years for the Project to date. There has, however, been a progression of gradual improvement since mid-May as new resources became available and as external situations were resolved. This explains why blogging has slowed down a lot this year and why most work over the last few months has slowed down to covering only a small section of a single volume. It is currently planned to have all of the Dunedin-Mosgiel work completed by the end of July which includes the production of a full map set. Some content of this section may be included in another article currently being drafted for the Observer.

Once this Dunedin-Mosgiel section is complete, a review will decide which volumes to work on for the rest of the year. Other work to be carried out includes getting another exchange of aerial images from Linz for use in future maps, and finalising the update of web maps to be carried out at the end of the year. The aerials from Linz are needed for a number of volumes that were previously planned to be completed this year, and with the change of schedule, it is likely those volumes will be completed within the 12 months from August this year through to July next year. However this is dependent on the aforementioned review setting the appropriate priorities.

It’s also been noted there are some issues with the NZ Rail Maps website that need to be addressed. Currently the site’s HTTPS security appears to be inoperative, and the menu which gives access to different parts of the site has been missing since the site changed webhosts last year, meaning a lot of content whilst present is actually not accessible. These issues will be addressed in the near future when the website gets some maintenance done.