Browns, New Zealand
Browns is a locality in Central Southland in New Zealand's South Island. It is just to the east of the town of Winton in the southwestern reaches of the Hokonui Hills. passes through the town on its route between Winton and Springhills. Browns was also the terminus of a railway branch line from 1953 until 1968. In 1883, a bush tramway was built into the Browns area from a junction with the Kingston Branch in Winton. In the 1890s, it was upgraded to railway standards, extended to Hedgehope, and handed over to the New Zealand Railways Department. This line was known as the Hedgehope Branch and opened on 17 July 1899 with a station in Browns. Passenger services ceased on 9 February 1931, and due to the decline in freight from stations beyond Browns, the Browns-Hedgehope section closed on 24 December 1953. Agricultural lime was the predominant traffic from Browns, and when government subsidies for the transport of lime by rail were slashed and the railway link (the Tokanui Br ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Southland, New Zealand
Southland ( mi, Murihiku) is New Zealand's southernmost region. It consists mainly of the southwestern portion of the South Island and Stewart Island/Rakiura. It includes Southland District, Gore District and the city of Invercargill. The region covers over 3.1 million hectares and spans over 3,400 km of coast. History The earliest inhabitants of Murihiku (meaning "the last joint of the tail") were Māori of the Waitaha iwi, followed later by Kāti Māmoe and Kāi Tahu. Waitaha sailed on the Uruao waka, whose captain Rakaihautū named sites and carved out lakes throughout the area. The Takitimu Mountains were formed by the overturned Kāi Tahu waka Tākitimu. Descendants created networks of customary food gathering sites, travelling seasonally as needed, to support permanent and semi-permanent settlements in coastal and inland regions. In later years, the coastline was a scene of early extended contact between Māori and Europeans, in this case sealers, whalers ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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South Island
The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman Sea, and to the south and east by the Pacific Ocean. The South Island covers , making it the world's 12th-largest island. At low altitude, it has an oceanic climate. The South Island is shaped by the Southern Alps which run along it from north to south. They include New Zealand's highest peak, Aoraki / Mount Cook at . The high Kaikōura Ranges lie to the northeast. The east side of the island is home to the Canterbury Plains while the West Coast is famous for its rough coastlines such as Fiordland, a very high proportion of native bush and national parks, and the Fox and Franz Josef Glaciers. The main centres are Christchurch and Dunedin. The economy relies on agriculture and fishing, tourism, and general manufacturing and services. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Winton, New Zealand
Winton is a rural town in Southland, New Zealand. It is located close to the east bank of the Ōreti River, 30 kilometres north of Invercargill and 50 kilometres south of Lumsden. The town is named after Thomas Winton, a local stockman who lived and farmed in the area in the 1850s. The district thrived with the development of sheep and fat-lamb farms in the early 1900s. Later, dairy farming became the staple economy, although the town has also seen sawmills, and flax and linen-flax industries. Today, Winton thrives as an agricultural service town for local farmers and traders and as a stop-off for travellers on the Invercargill– Queenstown highway. Its population is not declining, partly because farmers retire there, attracted by a climate that is warmer, drier and calmer than Invercargill or Southland’s coastal districts. Population increases have also been driven by an influx of dairy workers who have migrated with their families from countries such as the Philippines and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hokonui Hills
The Hokonui Hills, also known as ''The Hokonui Mountains'' or simply ''The Hokonui'', are a range of hills in central Southland, New Zealand. They rise to 600 metres above the surrounding Southland Plains, of which the hills mark a northern extremity. The Hokonui forms part of the Southland Syncline, a geological fold system which extends northwestward from the coast at The Catlins. Owing to the transform fault which forms the Southern Alps, the westernmost part of the syncline has been transported several hundred kilometres to the north; this western section includes many of the hills within the Kahurangi National Park in the northwest of the South Island. The Hokonui Hills also splits the Southland Plains in two - to the north and east lies the broad floodplain of the Mataura River, and to the south and west lie the plains of the Aparima and Ōreti Rivers. The Ōreti's major tributary, the Makarewa River, rises in the south of the Hokonui Hills. The hills lie within a trian ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Springhills
Springhills is a locality in the central Southland region of New Zealand's South Island. Situated in a gap between Forest Hill and the Hokonui Hills, it is located on 29 kilometres west of near Mataura and 15 kilometres east of at Winton. From 1899 until 1953, Springhills was also served by a branch line railway. The railway grew from a private bush tramway built in 1883 that ran from a junction with the Kingston Branch in Winton into the Browns Gap area. In the 1890s, the tramway was upgraded to railway standards, extended to Hedgehope, and handed over to the New Zealand Railways Department. This line was known as the Hedgehope Branch and it opened on 17 July 1899 with a station near Springhills known as Springhills Siding. Passenger services ceased on 9 February 1931, and due to declining freight tonnages, the Browns- Hedgehope section that passed through Springhills was closed on 24 December 1953. Little evidence remains of Springhills' railway heritage, though the f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Railway
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a prepared flat surface, rail vehicles (rolling stock) are directionally guided by the tracks on which they run. Tracks usually consist of steel rails, installed on sleepers (ties) set in ballast, on which the rolling stock, usually fitted with metal wheels, moves. Other variations are also possible, such as "slab track", in which the rails are fastened to a concrete foundation resting on a prepared subsurface. Rolling stock in a rail transport system generally encounters lower frictional resistance than rubber-tyred road vehicles, so passenger and freight cars (carriages and wagons) can be coupled into longer trains. The operation is carried out by a railway company, providing transport between train stations or freight customer facilit ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Branch Line
A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industrial spur is a type of secondary track used by railroads to allow customers at a location to load and unload railcars without interfering with other railroad operations. Industrial spurs can vary greatly in length and railcar capacity depending on the requirements of the customer the spur is serving. In heavily industrialized areas, it is not uncommon for one industrial spur to have multiple sidings to several different customers. Typically, spurs are serviced by local trains responsible for collecting small numbers of railcars and delivering them to a larger yard, where these railcars are sorted and dispatched in larger trains with other cars destined to similar locations. Because industrial spurs generally have less capacity and traffic t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Kingston Branch (New Zealand)
The Kingston Branch was a major railway line in Southland, New Zealand. It formed part of New Zealand's national rail network for over a century: construction began in 1864, Kingston was reached in 1878, and it closed in 1979. For much of its life, it was considered a secondary main line rather than a branch line, and in its earlier years, it was sometimes known as the "Great Northern Railway". Today, the southern portion now forms a part of the Wairio Branch and the northernmost 14 kilometres was used by the Kingston Flyer. Construction The Kingston Branch was built to be a main line north from Invercargill to improve communications through the Southland region, and to provide a link to the Central Otago gold fields. The provincial government of Southland was not very wealthy, and for this reason, a proposal claiming that the railway would be cheaper if built with wooden rails was accepted. A 12-kilometre line between Invercargill and Makarewa was opened on 18 Octobe ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hedgehope, New Zealand
Hedgehope is a locality in the central Southland region of New Zealand's South Island. Located in the Hokonui Hills, Winton is to the west, Mataura to the east, and Mabel Bush to the south. The nearest city is Invercargill, over 25 km to the southwest. passes through Hedgehope as it travels between Springhills and Glencoe. Hedgehope is named for the nearby Mount Hedgehope. The surveyor John Turnbull Thomson named the mountain after the second-highest peak in the Cheviot Hills of his native Northumberland. Hedgehope was also once the terminus of the Hedgehope Branch railway. On 17 July 1899, a branch line diverging from the Kingston Branch in Winton was opened to Hedgehope and it served the town for over half a century. Due to low demand, passengers always had to travel in carriages attached to slow freight services; these were known as mixed trains. The rise of private car ownership in the 1920s caused the quantity of passengers to slip to levels unsustainable for even ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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New Zealand Railways Department
The New Zealand Railways Department, NZR or NZGR (New Zealand Government Railways) and often known as the "Railways", was a government department charged with owning and maintaining New Zealand's railway infrastructure and operating the railway system. The Department was created in 1880 and was corporatised on 1 April 1982 into the New Zealand Railways Corporation. Originally, railway construction and operation took place under the auspices of the former provincial governments and some private railways, before all of the provincial operations came under the central Public Works Department. The role of operating the rail network was subsequently separated from that of the network's construction. From 1895 to 1993 there was a responsible Minister, the Minister of Railways. He was often also the Minister of Public Works. Apart from four brief experiments with independent boards, NZR remained under direct ministerial control for most of its history. History Originally, New Zea ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Hedgehope Branch
The Hedgehope Branch, also known as the Browns Branch, was a branch line railway in Southland, New Zealand that started life in the 1880s as a privately owned bush tramway. It opened as a railway in 1899 and operated until 1968, though the section beyond Browns closed in 1953. It connected with the national rail network in Winton on the Kingston Branch. Construction In 1883, the Forest Hill Tramway was established and a line that ran eight kilometres west of Winton to settlers in the Browns Gap area was constructed. Although the line was not particularly successful, the Hokonui Coal Company extended it in 1886 to serve their coal mining operations near the settlement of Hokonui. The tramway was built to standards far inferior to those of a railway, and the decision to upgrade was made in the 1890s. In 1896, the Makarewa River was bridged, and over the next three years, the old tramway was rebuilt to railway standards and the line was extended to Hedgehope. The line was co ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Agricultural Lime
Agricultural lime, also called aglime, agricultural limestone, garden lime or liming, is a soil additive made from pulverized limestone or chalk. The primary active component is calcium carbonate. Additional chemicals vary depending on the mineral source and may include calcium oxide. Unlike the types of lime called quicklime (calcium oxide) and slaked lime (calcium hydroxide), powdered limestone does not require lime burning in a lime kiln; it only requires milling. All of these types of lime are sometimes used as soil conditioners, with a common theme of providing a base to correct acidity, but lime for farm fields today is often crushed limestone. Historically, liming of farm fields in centuries past was often done with burnt lime; the difference is at least partially explained by the fact that affordable mass-production-scale fine milling of stone and ore relies on technologies developed since the mid-19th century. Some effects of agricultural lime on soil are: * it increa ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |