Ngatapa Branch
| Ngatapa Branch 1911 - 1931 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Ngatapa Branch was a secondary branch line railway 18,50 km long that for a short time formed part of the national rail network in Poverty Bay in the North Island of New Zealand. The Ngatapa branch diverged from the Moutohora branch line about 6 km from Gisborne and ran a further 12.5 km across the coastal flat to a terminus at Ngatapa.
Built to the New Zealand standard 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge the branch was originally authorized as part of the proposed inland route for the Wairoa to Gisborne section of the Palmerston North – Gisborne Line. However, in 1924, an engineer's report recommended that the then new isolated section between Wairoa and Waikokopu in Hawke's Bay be incorporated as the southernmost portion of a new coastal route from Wairoa to Gisborne. The Public Works Department (PWD) accordingly stopped work on the inland Ngatapa route, which was officially opened as a branch line on 15 December 1924, and began work on the coastal route. The Ngatapa branch became a dead end, and it was closed on 1 April 1931.
Construction started in 1911, and the line was completed to Ngatapa by December 1915, although it was not formally handed over to the New Zealand Railways Department (NZR) until 15 December 1924. Between 1918 and 1920, work started at Wairoa on the section to Frasertown, which was to have been linked through to Ngatapa, and on the Waikura section beyond Ngatapa, but all work was stopped in 1920 after the Waikura section was found to be unstable.
Construction of the line presented few problems as far as Ngatapa. The course of the line beyond this point was a different matter, and would have required heavy earthworks and extensive tunneling. Beyond Ngatapa, some formation work was undertaken for about 8 km, including the excavation of a short tunnel, but rails were never laid on the section. Today, earthworks such as embankments and cuttings can still be found, but no actual tunnels can be located, possibly due to collapse in the slip prone ground.
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Wikipedia