Brian's place - Ghost Railways

Brian's place

Catlins Branch

HOME : Trains : Ghost Railways : Catlins Branch

Some of the images can be clicked on to enlarge. Click here for the South Island map.
I have joined these two locations on one page because, well, I felt like it. And they both start with 'R'.

Please note that all photos are copyright to me (unless otherwise attributed).

The Catlins River Branch was built for hauling timber out of the central Catlins area, which was being cleared for farming. This whole are is very attractive, and a popular tourist area. It is one of these distinctively unique places, like the South Island's West Coast. Worth having a look around even if you're not interested in Ghost Railways!

The line goes from Balclutha through to Tahakopa. The Balclutha section is still an active railway, but I was so pleased to see some working railway that I have included it in my ghosts page!

March 2003 Update : Norman Hughes , an ex-Balclutha resident, has sent me some photographs of the last excursion out of Balclutha to Tahakopa. He has kindly allowed me to publish them here, please do not re-produce these without seeking permission! He even kindly captioned them for me .

April 2008 Update: Norman Hughes has sent me a little more information: Apparently the line was closed in 1971, being in a very poor state of repair. A few light diesels had worked the line spasmodically up until closure, and the very last passenger excursion steam train was a disaster - the steam locomotive broke down and people got home well after midnight!

NH: The starter signal was at the south end of the old Balclutha station, the Catlins branch dock starter clearly evident on the lower right. This signal of course is long gone, as has the dock – and the old station. The old station had a very big sign at either end of the platform “Change Here for Catlins River Branch"

NH: En route: AB 717 hauled this excursion train, for the life of me I can't remember whether it was a picnic excursion or what – but there were plenty of whistle stops such as this one at Puketiro.

NH: Arrival at Tahakopa – the loco had just been decoupled and was heading to the turntable.

NH: Self-Explanatory – on the way to the TT – note overgrown state of yard.

NH: Note manually operated TT!

Thanks for the awesome photos, Norman! Back to modern times, these were taken on my Southland/Otago trip in early 2005. This one is sunset at the Balclutha yard.

Balclutha has a standard NZR 55' turntable that looks quite serviceable. Not sure if it is use though.

Glint, tracks in the sunset

This is the Tunnel Hill DOC walkway (DOC stands for Department of Conservation, in case you don't know), well worth having a look around. This is the "far end" from the public car park, it's about a 10 minute walk.

The small Station building at McLennan still stands, along with it's good's shed. Keeping it company is the cab from a Thames Trader, two Landrovers (a series 1 and something else) and an HQ Holden.

Taking the road to Tahakopa, one travels up a very dusty shingle road. Often the old railway formation can be seem to the left of the road, some of it converted into farm roads like this. It's neat to see the old track route crossing miles of countryside, I would love to see some photographs of this line in operation (March update: Thanks to Norman Hughes, I have!)

At the end of the line are the remains of the once-proud Tahakopa Railway Station.

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