This month the work on Dunedin-Mosgiel maps in Volume 10 has been brought to a close, and a quick investigation has been done with sample maps for the Tuatapere-Orawia Branch. This Southland line originated at Makarewa (12 km north of Invercargill on the Kingston Branch) with the first 28 km to Riverton opened in 1879, closely followed by Colac (+11 km) in 1883 and Orepuki (+17 km) in 1885. A period of stagnation then followed, with the next section to Waihoaka (+7 km) opened in 1903, after which the pace of construction picked up again, with the line completed to Tuatapere (+13 km) in 1909. An extension to the final terminus at Orawia (90 km from Makarewa) opened in 1925. In its earlier years the railway was operated as two separate lines from the locomotive depot at Tuatapere, where separate trains ran north to Orawia and south-east to Invercargill, the former being two or three times weekly whilst the latter was a daily. In later years the Orawia branch was largely supported by traffic from a cement works that operated from 1956 to 1968; the closure sparked the suspension of the branch’s rail services soon afterwards in 1970. The Tuatapere Branch was dieselised in 1968 after which all services were originated from Invercargill. It was closed back to Riverton in 1976, the remaining section renamed as the Thornbury-Riverton Line, which lasted just two more years. Since then, the Makarewa-Thornbury section (18 km) has been incorporated into the Wairio Branch (currently named the Ohai Line).

As with some of the other branch lines that have been mapped recently, the availability of sufficient aerial photography of a high enough scale means that aerial mosaics can be produced for the entire route, mainly from a 1967 survey of State Highway 99, with supplementation from other surveys as necessary, particularly around the major stations of Thornbury, Riverton and Tuatapere, all of which had NZR station surveys flown in the early 1970s. Work has been undertaken this week to obtain base mosaics of the entire route and historical aerial surveys from Retrolens. The maps below show the major stations. Work will now pause to enable some other tasks to be completed, especially as Volume 12 is not currently of significant priority in the Project’s master schedule.

Thornbury Junction in 1971. It is unclear if the third leg of the triangle ever existed. Thornbury was an island platform in the days when the Tuatapere Branch had passenger services and a turntable was also installed in earlier years. The only remaining trace of the station is the old loading bank and possibly some of the passenger platform. Although it is 18 km from Thornbury to Makarewa, the Ohai Line now includes the first 13 km of the Kingston Branch in its length, hence the track distance from Invercargill to Thornbury is 31 km.

Riverton Station in 1974. It was the terminus of the line from 1879 to 1881 and again from 1976 to 1978. Only the site of the passenger platform can be located today.

Greater Riverton in 1967. The original route taken by the railway south-east of the town crossed the river in the same place as the highway and its bridge was shared with the road. It was replaced by the long estuary embankment with two bridges in 1905. The bridges remained in place many years after the line closed, but the embankment was eventually demolished in 2003, although the section approaching Bridge 5 from the Riverton side remains to the present day.

Tuatapere station 1971. Out of sight to the right, the Orawia Branch extension crossed a bridge on its way north. Bridges on the line up to Tuatapere were numbered up to 19 and are marked on the maps. The remaining facilities today are the station, platform and goods shed. After decades of use for other purposes, the local community has recently formed a railway precinct group and will upgrade the site with a railway history specific focus.