Otaihanga Railway Station

Otaihanga Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company (WMR)
Station statistics
Lines	Wellington-Manawatu Line
Platforms	Side
Tracks	Main line (1)
Other information
Opened	2 August 1886
Closed	1902
Owned by	WMR

Otaihanga Railway Station was a flag station between Paraparaumu and Waikanae on the Wellington-Manawatu Line in New Zealand, when the line was run by the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company. This line is now part of the Kapiti section of the North Island Main Trunk.

The station was opened on 2 August 1886. The two ends of the line met at Otaihanga on 27 October, and the last spike was driven at a public ceremony by Governor William Jervois on 3 November 1886 before more than a thousand people. The first revenue-earning train, a stock train from Longburn to Johnsonville with 355 sheep and 60 head of cattle had run on 30 October.

The station closed in 1902.

The station served Otaihanga, a then rural area between Paraparaumu and Waikanae which is now mainly residential.

The platform was on the east side of the line according to Cassells, who shows a blind siding on the west side of the line with the south end joining the main line. The station had a waiting shed, and was two miles and nine chains north of Paraparaumu.

The North Island Main Trunk Railway, looking south from the Otaihanga Road level crossing. On the right is the location of a former halt; on the left is Southward Car Museum.

References

• Cassells, K.R. Uncommon Carrier: The History of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company, 1882-1908 p. 152 (Wellington, NZRLS, 1994, ISBN 0-908573-63-4 )
• Hoy, Douglas. West of the Tararuas: An Illustrated History of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company p. 40,120 (Wellington, Southern Press, 1972)

External links

• Otaihanga from the Cyclopaedia of New Zealand, 1897
• Photo of crowd at 1886 opening ceremony