my-server
← Wiki

Mangapehi railway station

Mangapehi (or Mangapeehi) was a flag station on the North Island Main Trunk line, in the Waitomo District of New Zealand. It was north of Poro-O-Tarao and south of Kopaki.

Ellis & Burnand had a sawmill at Mangapehi from 1901 until 1968.

Station move

In 1950 the station was moved almost a kilometre north, away from the sawmill, at a cost of £13,405. In that year it had 23,636 passengers, 4 staff and railed of timber and 28,633 sheep and pigs, earning £3,256 from passengers and £85,473 from freight.

Tramway

A tramway was built into the bush to the east by Ellis and Burnand, initially with in 1903, and extended further in 1904. By 1909 it was over , which had cost an average of over £1,000 per mile. At it was slightly longer in 1922. and by 1939 there were over of tramway and when trucks took over in the 1950s.

Gradients were up to 1 in 15, requiring the use of geared Climax locos from 1905, which replaced horses on wooden rails. It also linked the station to the coal mines at Maniaiti / Benneydale. The 1904 Climax is now in the Tokomaru Steam Engine Museum, after ending service in 1954 and being briefly joined by another E & B Climax from their Manunui tramway.

Coal from the Mangapehi mine used the line between 1936 and 1952.

Gallery

References

External links