Welcome to another PNGL Volume 5 progress update. Hopefully the next one will tell you the volume has been published.

The main progress that has been done since last time is we have added aerial photo generations to the Napier maps. So we have historical aerial mosaic tiles for 1951, 1973, 1983 and 1996.

We have also been busy checking the alignments of the main line sections around Napier because these affected the Ahuriri Branch – the main line of this branch was realigned a number of times over the years – as well as the PNGL which in particular was relocated in 1990 between Ahuriri Junction and Westshore to make way for the present motorway.

When we started doing Napier a couple of years ago, at that time, we only covered the station and only for 1973. The recent additions are for 1973 all the way up to the Westshore bridge and part of the Port line as well, 1983 all up the same section of main line as well as Napier Station, and 1951 and 1996 the same. We have not added extra coverage of the Port (Ahuriri) line, and as noted in our last update, we will not be making major changes to the existing Diagrams around Napier. This is largely to save time. Since we changed the Aerial map formats to display less detail, it gives us more leeway to bring in extra generations without worrying too much about how they all line up together. It may well be the case in future maps that this allows us to create this historical content more rapidly than in the past and this would be a great benefit to the development of maps in general.

So anyway we are working hard to complete at the moment and will push on, still hope to complete as much as possible of the maps in what is left of today and if not well then top priority to finish tomorrow or at the latest Monday but we think it will happen by the end of the weekend.