The major work in the maps project this month has been with Volume 8 which covers the Nelson Section including the proposed extension to Murchison which was terminated in 1930 incomplete. This would have taken the length of the line to 84 miles / 135 km instead of the 103 km that was formally operated by NZR (Kawatiri) and the 67 miles / 113 km that was operable to Gowanbridge, the southernmost station on the section. A plan of the proposed Murchison station has been incorporated into the maps as well as the best available information on plans of the Gowanbridge and Kawatiti stations. Work is underway to create an entire set of aerial mosaics for the full corridor which in particular will help to determine the route taken between Glenhope and Murchison, as well as any historical features between Nelson and Glenhope that might still exist today.

The project work this month has been aided by discussions with members of two Groups.io forums: nz-rail-geography and NZR. These forums are proving valuable for hunting out additional resources and information for the Project and most discussion now takes place there rather than other associated forums like nzrailways.

The monthly webmaps update is happening this week and possibly next week. Volume 8 is being added to this update as well as some styling changes for all existing volumes, most relevantly proposed stations as mentioned above. The main issue that has been discovered in bringing together the new volumes being added the past few months has been incorrect extents boundaries – the extents is a special layer which tells the web maps capture program which parts of the map canvas to turn into web tiles. This means some content will be missing when the maps are zoomed in to the highest zoom levels. These issues are being addressed volume by volume as maps are generally revised and updated, rather than all being corrected as a specific task.