Towards the end of last year, a blog post suggested where work efforts should be directed for 2024. It referred to four volumes that were nearing completion and were hoped to be completed by the end of 2024. These were volumes 6, 7, 8 and 9. Progress has been made in a number of these areas, but not as much as was hoped at the time due to a variety of factors. Work is nevertheless ongoing in all of these volumes as well as some sections of other volumes that have been worked on during the past 12 months.

As has been noted recently, the emphasis has shifted lately to getting ready to do a web maps capture at the end of this year with the capture being planned for one volume at a time to be carried out each month throughout 2025 ensuring all volumes have been captured by the end of 2025. This will allow for webmaps updates to be more frequent than has been the case in recent years. Due to general busyness it is uncertain if the first capture, of volume 6, can be completed by the end of this year as proposed, but it will be completed as soon as can be feasibly achieved after that, and won’t be put off for the full year as it was at the end of last year,

Here is a list of progress completed in 2024 on these four volumes to date:

• Volume 6: Aerial photo surveys requested from Linz for Volume 6 were received and some of the survey data was checked to see where it could be used to complete the volume. Maps were updated of Paekakariki, Naenae and Maymorn.
• Volume 7: Maps were checked for Ross on the Ross Branch.
• Volume 8: In recent weeks maps have been produced or are in the process of being produced for: Mina, Phoebe and Spotswood, and for the track between Wharanui and Mirza which has seen several small deviations up to 2022.
• Volume 9: Maps for Ferrymead near Heathcote on MSL were checked.

A part of the delays comes from significant work being completed on other volumes. In 2024, this included the Dunedin-Mosgiel section of Volume 10; the Roxburgh Branch section of Volume 11; and the Tuatapere Branch section of Volume 12.

Apart from preparing for and implementing the webmaps capture, no priorities have yet been considered for 2025. Since the four volumes were considered to be the closest to completion, prioritising them for 2025 isn’t without merit. Volume 6 was found to require rather more work than planned, however, because adding the Wellington to Palmerston North section of the NIMT to it means the whole Foxton Branch has to be mapped in some form. Volume 7 is the least complete because it requires mapping of the entire Stillwater Westport Line corridor as well as a lot of the Midland Line that has not been covered. Volume 9 requires a lot of branch lines in Canterbury to be mapped. The closest line to completion out of those four is Volume 8, and therefore that should be prioritised first, for that reason and others, followed by Volume 9.

Getting a data capture from Linz is also important. This means getting a lot of aerial surveys produced on a SSD whenever it can be organised. This will be started shortly and focus upon the identified four volumes. Notably this year it hasn’t been possible to get hold of single images or groups of images from Linz staff because of the Government’s funding cuts. This means in reality it is only feasible to determine a year’s worth of requirements in advance to get a SSD full of surveys all sent at once.

As always, the priorities actually adopted for the year are impacted by the possibility of more urgent ad hoc requirements popping up. So this is really only an idea of what could happen in 2025, and is not completely certain.