Kurow Branch

The Kurow Branch (also known as the Hakataramea Branch) was a branch line railway that formed part of New Zealand's national rail network. Located in the North Otago region of the South Island, it was built in the 1870s to open up the land behind Oamaru for development and closed in 1983.

Construction

The Kurow Branch started life as a tramway when the Awamoko Tramway Company was formed in 1873. Construction of a tramway from the Main South Line at Awamoko (now Pukeuri) to Duntroon commenced the next year with approval from the Otago provincial government. In 1875, after the realisation that tramway standards were not sufficient for the line's purposes, an upgrade to railway standards commenced. Almost everything that had already been constructed had to be rebuilt; the rails were too light for the trains that were to operate, the sleepers were too small, and insufficient ballast had been laid. Nonetheless, only a fortnight after reconstruction began, the official opening ceremony took place on 1 December 1875. Freight trains did not actually begin running for another three weeks, and passengers were not carried until 16 August 1876, when the reconstruction programme had been completed. Furthermore, the line had not actually reached Duntroon; it terminated on the opposite, east bank of the Maerewhenua River due to bridging difficulties. [David Leitch and Brian Scott, "Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways", revised edition (Wellington: Grantham House 1998 [1995] ), 82.]

Another company, the Duntroon and Hakataramea Railway Company, formed in 1878 after the 1877 District Railways Act was passed, with the intention of building a railway from Duntroon to Kurow and then further up the Waitaki Valley. Construction commenced in 1879, and when the Waitaki River was bridged on 7 November 1881, the line was completed to Hakataramea, 1.76 km beyond Kurow by rail on the northern side of the Waitaki. There were plans to build the line further, to a proposed town that was to have 10,000 residents, but the town never came to fruition, the railway was not extended, and Hakataramea remained the terminus. [North Otago Museum, "Duntroon Railway Station", "High Country Herald", 17 October 2007.] A few months earlier, the Maerewhenua River was finally bridged on 2 July 1881, and with the completion of the Hakataramea section, the full line was opened for service. The Duntroon and Hakataramea Railway Company did not purchase its own equipment; the branch was always operated by the New Zealand Railways Department. This arrangement lasted for over three years while the company and government disputed about ownership, primarily due to the fact the line was abbreviated to terminating in Hakataramea rather than being built to the full extent of original plans. Ultimately, the government purchased the line in April 1885 and charged a tariff beyond Duntroon until 1897. [Leitch and Scott, "Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways", 83.]

Further railway construction in the area took place in 1928, when the Public Works Department built 6.4 kilometres of railway from Kurow to the construction site of the Waitaki hydro-electric dam. This line was never owned or operated by NZR, though NZR trains did occasionally use the line (in such cases, a Public Works Department locomotive took over from NZR's in Kurow). Works and freight services began on 20 December 1928 and passengers were carried from 25 February 1929. [John Yonge (editor), "New Zealand Railway and Tramway Atlas", fourth edition (Essex: Quail Map Company, 1993), 24.]

Stations

The following stations were located on the Kurow Branch (in brackets is the distance from the junction in Pukeuri): [Yonge, "New Zealand Railway and Tramway Atlas", 24.]

*Papakaio (6.94 km)
*Gibsons (10.18 km)
*Peebles (12.75 km) - gravel pits located west of the station.
*Aitchisons (17.52 km)
*Uxbridge (19.85 km)
*Black Point (26.01 km)
*Bortons (28.72 km)
*Maerewhenua Siding (34.4 km) - the "Duntroon" terminus before the Maerewhenua River was bridged. Sometimes spelt "Marewhenua".
*Duntroon (35.5 km)
*Waikaura (39.75 km)
*Otekaieke (45.97 km)
*Strachans (52.33 km)
*Hilles (55.73 km)
*Kurow (58.57 km)
*Hakataramea (60.33 km) - also spelt "Hakateramea".

After the closure of the brief section between Kurow and Hakataramea, the end of the branch was just beyond the Kurow station at a distance of 59.22 km from Pukeuri.

Many of the stations were progressively closed during the branch's lifetime; when it was closed, the only four in use were Papakaio, Duntroon, Otekaieke, and Kurow. [Geoffrey B. Churchman and Tony Hurst, "The Railways of New Zealand: A Journey Through History" (Auckland: HarperCollins, 1991), 205.]

Operation

The Kurow Branch's operations in its first few decades of existence were unremarkable from those typical of many rural New Zealand branch lines. A single mixed train that carried both passengers and freight would depart Kurow for Oamaru in the morning and return in the late afternoon. The train took roughly three hours each way. In 1926, the branch became the location for the trial of one of New Zealand's two steam railcars, the Clayton steam railcar, offering a passenger timetable of 1 hour and 45 minutes between Oamaru and Kurow. However, the railcar did not prove popular and it was replaced by a regular carriage passenger train hauled by a steam locomotive on 10 November 1928. This new train ran to the railcar's schedule but was cancelled as of 12 July 1930 due to the effects of the Great Depression. Special passenger trains still ran on occasions, notably in 1931 when they took sightseers down the Public Works Department's line from Kurow to the then under construction Waitaki Dam. For a few years, the PWD used its own rolling stock to offer a passenger service to school children who lived along the line and attended classes in Kurow. This service ceased with the other operations of the line in the mid-1930s; the line formally closed in late 1936 and the track was removed in April 1937. Prior to this, NZR had closed their section of track from Kurow to Hakataramea on 14 July 1930. [Leitch and Scott, "Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways", 83.]

From its opening until the 1960s, the line was operated by steam locomotives, initially of the F and T classes, later the W^F and W^W, and then from the late 1940s, the A and A^B. By the 1940s, traditional forms of traffic such as livestock and agricultural supplies were declining as competition from road transport increased, and the primary freight became goods for the Upper Waitaki Hydro Scheme. On 25 March 1947, passenger provisions were withdrawn and the mixed trains became goods only. [Churchman and Hurst, "The Railways of New Zealand", 205.] In the late 1960s, the line's motive power was dieselised when the DJ class was introduced and trains were reduced to operating thrice weekly, then just on Mondays and Thursdays. The line's future rested upon its role as the railhead for the dam construction, and even with just two trains a week, sometimes one would be cancelled. When the final project was completed in the early eighties, the line ceased to have a sufficient reason to exist and it was accordingly closed on 5 June 1983, with the final train running two days later to collect rolling stock still on the line. [Leitch and Scott, "Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways", 83.]

The branch today

The forces of both natural and human activity cause remnants of closed railways to diminish and disappear, but relics of the Kurow Branch still exist. The formation of the line is still visible for much of its length, and some crossing gates, culverts, and bridge piles remain. The Maerewhenua River bridge is long gone, but the combined road/rail bridge over the Waitaki River to Hakataramea still exists as simply a road bridge. Loading banks or platforms can still be found at rural stations such as Papakaio and Uxbridge, and Otekaieke's station sign stands in a field. In Kurow, the station building has been modified by a farmer for private use and no longer fully recognisable. [Leitch and Scott, "Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways", 83-4.] The most significant remnant is in Duntroon, where the station building has been preserved as a community crafts centre and as base for Duntroon's farmers' markets, and a water tank stands nearby in good condition. [North Otago Museum, "Duntroon Railway Station".]

References