The Kapuni Branch, formerly known as the Opunake Branch, is a branch railway in North Island, New Zealand. It opened in 1926, and ran 36.4 km across the southern slopes of Mount Taranaki to link the rural town of Ōpunake with the Marton–New Plymouth Line 2 km north of the small rural settlement of Te Roti, equidistant between Eltham and Hāwera. With the decline of rural freight, part of the line was closed in 1976, but the 10.9 km section to Kapuni was retained and upgraded to service traffic to the Kapuni natural gas field.
The four routes surveyed were:
The route from Te Roti was ultimately chosen as being the most direct and least expensive option. It also took a more central route over the plains, creating a shorter journey for coastal farms to access the railway.
Earthworks reached Kapuni by 1916, but progress was slowed by World War I. Work was suspended in December 1917, and recommenced in March 1919. At the peak 200 men were employed on line works, including a large 1.6 km cutting near Waiteika. The Waingongoro Bridge near Te Roti, an unusual (for New Zealand) brick arch bridge, was completed in 1921, and the second bridge in 1923.
The Public Works Department began running goods trains to Kapuni from 1 August 1923, and to Mangawhero Road by December 1924. The Ōpunake terminal was reached on 8 June 1925. On 12 July 1926 the Railways Department took over the line. A construction train was derailed by a cow in March 1925 and the guard was killed and 3 other workers injured. The railway was officially opened by the Prime Minister, Robert Coates, on 27 October 1925.
Services departed Hāwera at 9:30am, reaching Ōpunake 90 minutes later. Return services departed at 11:45am reaching Hāwera at 1:42pm. There was no stationmaster assigned to Ōpunake station initially, despite the large station building provided. From 13 March 1931 there was a caretaker and from 22 June 1942 a stationmaster.
By 1930 goods traffic had increased and an extra service was scheduled for Thursdays as well. As well as general freight and livestock, a number of smaller dairy factories along the line provided good traffic at this time. Road competition for freight from these dairy companies ramped up from the 1940s with several dairy companies preferring to truck produce directly to New Plymouth.
Excursion trains were popular in the late 1920s and early 1930s with trains from Whanganui, New Plymouth and Waitara visiting. The first such train was a race train that ran to Pihama station on 18 March 1925 - over a year before the branch was officially completed. An excursion from New Plymouth in 1967 took about 2½ hours each way.
From December 1966, DB class diesel locomotives became the primary motive power used (introduced a few weeks after the nearby Waitara Branch). By the 1980s they had in turn been replaced with DC class diesel locomotives running as far as Kapuni, the new end of the line.
30 October 1967 |
21 August 1969 |
28 January 1978 |
31 October 1955 |
22 September 1989* |
1 April 1973 |
31 March 1976 |
31 July 1976 |
21 August 1965 |
21 August 1965 |
31 July 1976 |
The railway station building in Opunake was a Class A lean-to building, complete with general and ladies waiting rooms and space for a station office. It and a x goods shed and a lamp and footwarmer shed were built by J W Boon, of Stratford, by July 1925. He also built 3 railway houses in 1925/26. By 1926 there were also a platform, cart approach, loading bank, stockyards, an engine shed, 55 foot turntable (built at Addington Workshops about February 1926 and still in use in 1966) and sidings able to hold 60, 30, 26, 23 and 18 wagons, reduced to 55, 31 and 17 by 1959.
On 14 May 1961 the junction was realigned with points facing toward Eltham and services operated from Stratford instead. The Hāwera locomotive depot was closed around the same time, and Te Roti station itself closed in 1967.
The lifting of the railway beyond Kapuni was initially subject to a union ban, and track and buildings remained in place until the early 1980s (similar to what happened with the closure of the Waiau Branch in Canterbury around the same time).
For many years there remained a goods shed and loading bay at Pihama and a locomotive shed, gateposts, a platform and goods loading bank at Ōpunake. Most of these have since been removed, but concrete gateposts remain at several road crossings to this day and the former Ōpunake station site remains clearly visible. The former Ōpunake station building has since been relocated to the Taranaki Pioneer Village in Stratford.
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