The Canterbury Interior Main Line was a proposed

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 pre ...

line that would have linked many of the

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 industr ...

s 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 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 ...

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 ...

. Although it was never built in full, its most northerly portion was constructed.

The proposal

The proposal was created and developed in the 1870s and 1880s as branch lines began to fan out from the then under-construction Main North Line and

Main South Line The Main South Line, sometimes referred to as part of the South Island Main Trunk Railway, is a railway line that runs north and south from Lyttelton in New Zealand through Christchurch and along the east coast of the South Island to Inverca ...

(which together form the

South Island Main Trunk Railway The Main North Line between Picton and Christchurch and the Main South Line between Lyttelton and Invercargill, running down the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand, are sometimes together referred to collectively as the South Isl ...

). These lines ran from coastal centres inland and were intended to provide better communication and transport for young, fledgling communities and to open up parts of Canterbury for greater, more intensive economic activity – mainly

agriculture Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...

. The Canterbury Interior Main Line proposal intended to link these branch lines together. It was to leave the Main North Line in

Rangiora Rangiora is the largest town and seat of the Waimakariri District, in Canterbury, New Zealand. It is north of Christchurch, and is part of the Christchurch metropolitan area. With an estimated population of Rangiora is the 30th largest urba ...

, head inland to

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

and

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

and then link a number of branch lines at or near their termini before returning to the coast and joining the Main South Line in

Temuka Temuka is a town on New Zealand's Canterbury Plains, 15 kilometres north of Timaru and 142 km south of Christchurch. It is located at the centre of a rich sheep and dairy farming region, for which it is a service town. It lies on the no ...

, just north of

Timaru Timaru (; mi, Te Tihi-o-Maru) is a port city in the southern Canterbury Region of New Zealand, located southwest of Christchurch and about northeast of Dunedin on the eastern Pacific coast of the South Island. The Timaru urban area is home to ...

. The lines linked would have been: * Oxford Branch – the route inland from Rangiora *

Eyreton Branch The Eyreton Branch was a branch line railway that formed part of New Zealand's national rail network. Located in the Canterbury region of the South Island, it left the Main North Line in Kaiapoi and was built a mere ten kilometres south of t ...

– it was connected to the Oxford Branch * Midland Line – then known as the Malvern Branch, it terminated in Malvern (now known as Sheffield) *

Whitecliffs Branch The Whitecliffs Branch was an long branch line railway that formed part of New Zealand's national rail network in the Canterbury region of the South Island. It was more industrial than the many rural branches on the South Island's east coast ...

– to meet it in Homebush *

Methven Branch The Methven Branch was a branch line railway that was part of New Zealand's national rail network in Canterbury. It opened in 1880 and operated until 1976. Construction In 1877, the District Railways Act was passed to enable districts to cons ...

Mount Somers Branch The Mount Somers Branch, sometimes known as the Springburn Branch, was a branch line railway in the region of Canterbury, New Zealand, Canterbury, New Zealand. The line was built in stages from 1878, reaching Mount Somers in 1885. A further s ...

The constructed portion

On 21 June 1875, the Oxford Branch was completed to Oxford, and construction soon began on a link across the

Waimakariri Gorge The Waimakariri Gorge is located on the Waimakariri River in inland Canterbury in the South Island of New Zealand. The height of the Waimak gorge bridge is 30m. Like its neighbour, the Rakaia River, the Waimakariri runs through wide shingle beds ...

to Sheffield. A Royal Commission of New Zealand's railways in 1880 recommended the early completion of this link to Sheffield, and despite the

Long Depression The Long Depression was a worldwide price and economic recession, beginning in 1873 and running either through March 1879, or 1896, depending on the metrics used. It was most severe in Europe and the United States, which had been experiencing st ...

, it was finished and opened on 28 July 1884. This was seen as the first portion of the Canterbury Interior Main Line, and although the 1880 Royal Commission disapproved of the proposal, it remained on the table for a number of years. However, increasing usage of road transport in the early 20th century began to impact the number of passengers and freight carried by rail and the economic viability of any interior main line sharply declined and the proposal disappeared. By 1930, it was clearly accepted that the proposal would never come to fruition, as evidenced by the closure of the Oxford to Sheffield link on 14 July 1930. The rest of the Oxford Branch closed on 19 April 1959.

References

* * Leitch, David, and Scott, Brian; ''Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways'', Grantham House, 1998 revised edition {{NZR Lines Proposed railway lines in New Zealand Rail transport in Canterbury, New Zealand Railway lines in New Zealand