Nelson Section

The Nelson Section as its name implies, remained an isolated section its whole life. With construction starting in April 1873 on the Nelson Foxhill Railway as the first easy section was promoted as, it envisaged a great future with the prospect of linking up with Greymouth and Christchurch via a promised Midland Railway. Construction progress was slow with ultimately 64 miles (just over 100km) constructed over some 50 years. When all construction ceased in 1930, a gap of only a 42 mile (67km) existed in order to connect with Inangahua, the railhead from Christchurch at the time.

The following table lists all the stations with their distances from the start (Port) in both Miles and chains, and in kilometres, It also lists the station's elevation in feet and metres, plus opening an closing dates. Each Station name forms a link to a separate page about that Station.

Station	Mileage M.ch	Metrage km	Elevation ft	Elevation m	Opened	Closed
Port	0.00	0.00	10	3	17/05/1880	3/09/1955
Nelson	1.00	1.60	10	3	31/01/1876	3/09/1955
Bishopdale	2.72	4.67	213	65	31/01/1876	3/09/1955
Stoke	5.32	8.67	74	23	26/02/1876	3/09/1955
Freezing_Works	6.72	11.10	(22)	(6)	17/06/1915	3/09/1955
Richmond	8.32	13.52	28	13	31/01/1876	3/09/1955
Appleby	9.32	15.13	51	16	c.23/04/1895	3/09/1955
Hope	10.32	16.74	72	22	31/01/1876	3/09/1955
Brightwater	13.16	21.24	93	28	31/01/1876	3/09/1955
Spring_Grove	14.48	23.50	123	36	31/01/1876	3/09/1955
Wakefield	17.24	27.84	204	62	31/01/1876	3/09/1955
Wai-iti	20.22	32.19	328	100	31/01/1876	3/09/1955
Foxhill	21.16	34.12	367	112	25/07/1881	3/09/1955
Belgrove	22.56	35.63	438	134	25/07/1881	3/09/1955
Motupiko	31.72	51.34	621	189	16/02/1899	3/09/1955
Mararewa	35.08	56.49	529	161	22/10/1906	13/06/1954
Tapawera	36.64	59.22	479	146	6/08/1906	3/09/1955
Rakau	39.48	63.73	555	169	6/08/1906	3/09/1955
Tadmor	42.24	68.08	671	205	6/08/1906	3/09/1955
Kiwi	47.32	76.28	896	274	18/12/1908	3/09/1929
Tui	50.48	81.43	1064	325	2/09/1912	3/09/1955
Kaka	55.32	85.94	1208	369	2/09/1912	3/09/1955
Glenhope	60.19	96.64	1272	388	24/04/1912	3/09/1955
Kawatiri	64.10	103.20	1160	354	21/06/1926	21/06/1931
Gowan_Bridge	67.03	109.5	1050	320	13/05/1929	24/06/1933

CONSTRUCTION

Like any Railway, getting construction underway was not easy and then inevitably carried out in stages as funding could be made available. Petitioning to Government played a significant role in which areas got funding ahead of others, but at the end of the day, the total that could be committed in any one year was spread out in a way that suited Central Government, rather than the wishes of a few locals.

Nelsons railway dreams started in 1862 already when a feasibility study was requested from the Provincial Council for 19km of railway to the Wairoa River. Before long, news of gold discoveries on the West Coast and coal deposits in the mountains to the south-west saw that dream expand to a railway to the Western Ranges. However, the huge burden of debt that the community would be lumbered with shattered those dreams for a number of years until a real gold-rush developed, moving rapidly up the west Coast.

The dreams were now now formulated into a define plan with a land grant partly funding the construction of a line from Nelson to Cobden on the north side of the Grey River opposite Greymouth. This plan was duly approved by Central Government with the passing of the Nelson, Cobden and Westport Railway Land Act. Nelson however, could still not fund such a grand project and sought support from England which they did eventually find, only to have first the Franco-Prussian war interfere, and then Julius Vogel's Immigration and Public Works Policy, as Central Governments answer to a flagging local economy. The Nelson Provincial Council could not compete against that, so all local efforts came to nothing.

By this point though, the Nelson Cobden Railway was still being promoted, but in a more piecemeal fashion.