Goldfield Railway
The Goldfield Railway Waihi - Waikino Inc. is a daily museum and tourist railway on the North Island of New Zealand between the places Waihi and Waikino parallel to the older Waihi – Waikino Gold Tramway .
The 6.5-kilometer line, the only remaining section of the former East Coast Main Trunk Railway between Paeroa and Tauranga , has the 1067 mm gauge of the New Zealand railroad known as the Cape Gauge .
History of the railway line
With the extensive expansion of the Martha Mine in Waihi at the beginning of the 1900s into one of the largest open-cast mining facilities in the country, the need for a connection to the railway network under construction grew. On November 5, 1905, the connection to the railway network of the North Island took place with the opening of the railway line between Paeroa and Waihi through the Karangahake Gorge with the 1,006 meter long Karangahake Tunnel. Waihi was the end of the route for 23 years. At that time, numerous alternatives were a development of the Bay of Plenty examined region by rail, in 1909 the plan was ultimately adopted, with the East Coast Main Trunk Line linking Auckland via Tauranga to Whakatane and possibly even to Gisborne to realize. However, the First World War and the subsequent Depression caused these plans to be delayed, so that Waihi only became a through station in 1928 with the completion of the Frankton-Taneatua branch line.
Due to its winding course and the steep gradients along the route, an increase in freight traffic from Auckland to the Bay of Plenty district was hardly possible. After the maintenance work increased due to the increasing use of the line, the nine kilometer long Kaimai Tunnel was dug through the Kaimai Range between Gordon and Apata . When it opened in 1979, the route through the Karangahake Gorge and via Waihi was closed.
Development of the museum railway
In 1980, the Goldfield Steam Train Society was founded by a group of railroad enthusiasts with the aim of taking over the disused Waihi station and the disused railway tracks between Waihi and Waikino. At this point in time, the objective was already defined to carry out a museum transport with historical vehicles and to familiarize the visitors with the railway history of the region.
In the mid-1990s, the name was changed to Goldfield Railway Incorporated in line with modern marketing requirements .
Today's museum railway operations and vehicles
Using various historical vehicles from the New Zealand railways, three pairs of trains are now operated daily on the 6.5-kilometer route.
Some of the vehicles on the museum railway were left behind at Waihi station after the line was closed, or they were fetched from other lines in New Zealand by the railroad enthusiasts.
Sources and web links
- Churchman, Geoffrey B .; Hurst, Tony: The Railways Of New Zealand - A Journey Through History , HarperCollins Publishers (New Zealand) (for 1st edition 1990), transpress New Zealand Wellington (2nd edition 2000), ISBN 0-908876-20-3 .
- Goldfield Railway Waihi - Waikino (Engl.)
Coordinates: 37 ° 23 ′ S , 175 ° 50 ′ E