- Winton, New Zealand
Location map
New Zealand
label=Winton
lat_dir=S | lat_deg=46 | lat_min=8
lon_dir=E | lon_deg=168 | lon_min=20
position=right
width= 150
float=right
caption=Winton is a town in
Southland, New Zealand . It is located close to the east bank of theOreti River , 30 kilometres north ofInvercargill and 50 kilometres south of Lumsden. It is named after Thomas Winton, a local stockman who lived in the area in the 1850s. Winton has a population of 2,100 as of the 2001 census.Minnie Dean , the only woman ever hanged in New Zealand, is buried in Winton cemetery.The town is noted as having one main street, Great North Road, which is a part of State Highway 6 between Queenstown and Invercargill. The friendly town is often a rest stop on the way south of the coast. State Highway 96, a regional highway, connects east to the town of Gore
Winton was formerly a
railway junction but is no longer served by any trains. On22 February 1871 , a railway line from Invercargill was opened to Winton, built to the internationalstandard gauge of 1,435mm. This was the furthest extent of Southland's standard gauge network, and the next section to Caroline was built to New Zealand's national gauge, RailGauge|42narrow gauge railway . This extension opened on20 October 1875 , ending Winton's 4.5 years as a railway terminus, and two months later, the line back to Invercargill was converted to 1,067mm gauge. This line grew to be the Kingston Branch. In 1883, a bush tramway was built eastwards from Winton, and in the 1890s, it was rebuilt to railway standards as abranch line and opened as theHedgehope Branch on17 July 1899 . It established Winton as a railway junction, and the town functioned in this capacity until1 January 1968 , when the Hedgehope Branch closed. The Kingston line, once one of the more important lines in the country, declined during the 1970s, and most of it closed on13 December 1982 , including the portion through Winton. Today, little remains of Winton's railway, though its route can be discerned.References
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