Avoca is a locality in the

Canterbury Canterbury (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and UNESCO World Heritage Site, situated in the heart of the City of Canterbury local government district of Kent, England. It lies on the River Stour, Kent, River Stour. ...

region of New Zealand. It is situated along the Midland Railway Line between Craigieburn and Staircase. There are no permanent residents, but it once supported a small number of railway staff.

Mount Torlesse Coal Company

This company operated

coal mines Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

in the adjacent Broken River Valley between ca. 1917 and ca. 1928. It operated a 70 cm horse and steam hauled tramway from an approx. 700-metre-long

inclined plane An inclined plane, also known as a ramp, is a flat supporting surface tilted at an angle from the vertical direction, with one end higher than the other, used as an aid for raising or lowering a load. The inclined plane is one of the six clas ...

that hauled coal up out of the Broken River valley, thence 2.7 kilometers along a high hill-side to another inclined plane that lowered coal approx 600 meters to bins at Avoca railway station. Coal was then distributed throughout

. The opening of the Otira Railway Tunnel in 1923 giving access to cheaper coal from Westland probably contributed significantly to the company's demise. The old mine manager's house is now used by the Conservation Department as a field staff training facility.Rails Magazine 7/2001: Quail

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

Railway Atlas, 4th Ed. Quail Map Co.: Stormbeird Research paper, 2000.

References

Populated places in Canterbury, New Zealand {{Canterbury-geo-stub