Inch Valley is a lightly populated rural locality in the

Otago Otago (, ; mi, Ōtākou ) is a region of New Zealand located in the southern half of the South Island administered by the Otago Regional Council. It has an area of approximately , making it the country's second largest local government reg ...

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 ...

. It is northwest of

Palmerston Palmerston may refer to: People * Christie Palmerston (c. 1851–1897), Australian explorer * Several prominent people have borne the title of Viscount Palmerston ** Henry Temple, 1st Viscount Palmerston (c. 1673–1757), Irish nobleman an ...

and Glenpark, east of Stoneburn, on the banks of the Shag River. Economic activity around Inch Valley is

agricultural Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating Plant, plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of Sedentism, sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of Domestication, domesticated species created food ...

Transport

Inch Valley is between Glenpark and

Dunback Dunback, formerly Waihemo, is a small town in the Otago region of New Zealand. It is located between Palmerston and Ranfurly on Highway 85. It has a population of about 200 people. Most of these people live in the rural areas near the town. ...

on State Highway 85. For 104 years, a

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 industri ...

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 ...

passed through Inch Valley; for 68 of these years, it served as a railway junction. The Dunback Branch from the

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 ...

through Inch Valley to Dunback opened on 29 August 1885, to open up the country and serve farming interests. On 31 March 1900 the short Makareo Branch from Inch Valley northeast to a limeworks in Makareao opened. Passengers in Inch Valley were served solely by

mixed train A mixed train or mixed consist is a train that contains both passenger and freight cars or wagons. Although common in the early days of railways, by the 20th century they were largely confined to branch lines with little traffic. Typically, servic ...

s that ran between Palmerston and Dunback. Due to declining patronage these were cancelled on 10 August 1930 and replaced by goods-only trains. Inch Valley's railway station had a small shelter shed for passengers, a loading bank for freight and a loop for 15 wagons; 100 metres away was a ballast siding. On 1 January 1968 the Dunback Branch was closed due to substantial financial losses. Local freight was no longer carried; trains ran through Inch Valley without stopping thrice weekly to serve the Makareao limeworks. On 1 June 1989 this line closed. The railway

formation Formation may refer to: Linguistics * Back-formation, the process of creating a new lexeme by removing or affixes * Word formation, the creation of a new word by adding affixes Mathematics and science * Cave formation or speleothem, a secondar ...

is visible around Inch Valley; at the old station site, a set of points and the loading bank are still in place. A 15-span trestle bridge that took the Makareao Branch over the Shag River was destroyed in the mid-1990s as a military training exercise.Leitch and Scott, ''Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways'', 89.

References

{{Waitaki District, New Zealand Populated places in Otago