NZR South Island Lines and Stations

Introduction

For convenience, the Lines and Stations data is presented in two section, one for the South Island and one for the North Island. The most visual way of over-viewing this data is to go to the Network Diagrams, and you can access the South Island Network Diagram here

The Network Diagram is a collection of lists, in this case of all the main and Branch Lines the ever existed in the South Island, but there has been a little lee-way taken in defining a branch line. The most common inclusion are small private lines with which there was some exchange of wagons, i.e. NZR wagons ran on the Line, or Private wagons came off the line and journeyed some way on NZR tracks.

The lists that make up the lines show all the stations on the Line, except in the case of Branch Lines where the connecting Station is only shown once on its originating Line.

A list making up a single Line on the Network Diagram is in the form of cells where alternate cells comprise a Station name, and the intermediate cells a link symbol ][ to represent the section of track between stations. Because every Station that ever existed is shown in the list, some of the intermediate sections can be quite short, but in general, the lists do not attempt to indicate distance, just the sequence of stations between the Junction and the end.

Every railway line has a direction, and Lines on the Network Diagram can have their direction running up the screen or down the screen depending where their start Station is relative to the end of Line. Wherever possible, the direction roughly matches the geographic direction of a Line.

In the South Island there is really only one Main Line and that is the Main South Line, it does not start at a junction Station. However, the Main North Line is also classified a Main Line but it branches off the Main South Line (at Addington)

We then need to clarify 'what comprises a Station'. In simple terms that is every location the used to have an official station name, plus in a few cases a suitable name has been coined for the few locations that form(ed) a junction but did not have an official name.

The columns of Stations and track Sections on the Network Diagram are linked by horizontal lines, from the Start station on 'main' line, to the first track section on the Branch line. Above or below the horizontal linking line are some larger cells completely outlined in bold. These show the name of the Branch Line. In some cases the branch was known by several names, in which case these are all listed. However only one is shaded blue, the others pink, the blue one is always the current name of the Line if is still operating, or the name when the Branch was at its longest. There are a few instances of Orange names and these indicate a junction at the end of a Branch, a good example is the Waimea Plains Branch, which ran from Gore on the Main South Line to Lumsden on the Kingston Line. At the Lumsden end, there is an orange Waimea Plains Line name. Where there have been large track realignment (usually spanning more than one station, the same principal has been used.

The cells of the columns of Lines are also shaded to indicates the status of the Line. Green signifies the line is still operating, now by KiwiRail, Pink indicates the Line is closed and lifted, Yellow indicates the line was privately owned, so not an NZR line, but is now closed and lifted, and Grey indicates a Heritage operation, either on an old NZR or private Line , or constructed away from the original Railway.

To head to the South Island Network Diagram, click the following link South Island Network Diagram

The Mainlines

Technically, there is only one Mainline in the South Island, namely the Main South Line, It was originally envisaged to be a single line from Nelson (or Picton) to Bluff, but never reached further north than Waiau. At that point in time it was referred to as the Hurunui - Bluff Railway, with a branch line to Lyttelon. As routes northward were explored more thoroughly it became less certain that the line would be extended beyond Waiau and as there was little through traffic from Waiau south of Christchurch, the main line was eventually defined as Lyttelton to Bluff. There was however, a very peculiar situation at Invercargill, in that in order to get to Bluff, you had to change direction. Yard alterations at Invercargill were always affecting the exact position of the point where the mileage reversed, such that when all the Lines were remeasure in 1974 in preparation of adopting the Metric system of measurements, the end of the Main South Line was formally defined as Invercargill and the Invercargill to Bluff portion became the Bluff Branch.

Heading North from Christchurch we have what is now known as the Main North Line