Here’s a good overview of the Clyde area and showing how the line headed up into the Cromwell Gorge, compared to where the dam and Lake Dunstan are today. Bridge 86 seen out to the right is the Muttontown Gully viaduct.

One of the aerial photos I have (back when I was paying $50 a session to Archives New Zealand to scan 10 images at a time from their contact prints of the L&S collection) of Clyde is from a series I got of Clyde-Cromwell dated 1992. At that time the track lifting of the Otago Central Line was well under way and all of the Clyde yard should have been lifted along with all of the sidings that would be visible in this picture. You can see a lot of other changes from some of the earlier photos I have such as the Ministry of Works houses being removed etc. The Clyde yard today is changed a lot although the main railway structures are still standing. The function of the long thin building right above the railway yard is unclear; it was not there in 1981 and presumably did not have a railway function. It still stands today.

New Clyde had two “yards” in effect: there was the main freight and operational yards where the goods shed, engine shed and turntable were located at the westernmost end of the line. Then there were the sidings adjacent to the MOW depot which started at Young Lane and went west to a point where there was a short section of mainline between the two locations. Here are the sidings near the MOW site coming off the mainline at Young Lane.

This map shows more clearly the separation between the two yards. Note that for the main Clyde yard, I still have a bit of work to line things up from between the two sets of aerial photos I have, so the track layout seen to the far left is probably somewhat incorrect at this time. We can also see the MOW sidings into their own depot curving off in a northerly direction.

This is what that MOW depot and sidings looked like on the ground. Photo taken September 1989 by Patrick Dunford.

Overview of the MOW depot site. Compare with the aerial photo above.

Closeup of the MOW depot. Definitely worthwhile for someone to have a look closeup at the depot sometime. It isn’t clear whether the buildings are new or parts of the old building; what is reasonably clear is that the entire footprint of the depot building that can be seen in the aerial photos isn’t currently occupied; you can see concrete footings that are exposed.

I will have more of Clyde as soon as I get the main yard redrawn since as mentioned some adjustments are needed (as have been made in most of what is included in this post)