Kimihia Railway Station was on the

North Island Main Trunk The North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) is the main railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, connecting the capital city Wellington with the country's largest city, Auckland. The line is long, built to the New Zealand rail gauge of and ser ...

line, north of

Huntly Huntly ( gd, Srath Bhalgaidh or ''Hunndaidh'') is a town in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, formerly known as Milton of Strathbogie or simply Strathbogie. It had a population of 4,460 in 2004 and is the site of Huntly Castle. Its neighbouring settlemen ...

in the

Waikato District Waikato District is a territorial authority of New Zealand, in the northern part of Waikato region, North Island. Waikato District is administered by the Waikato District Council, with headquarters in Ngāruawāhia. The district is centred to t ...

of New Zealand. The station was in 1886 measured as south of Mercer, which is where an unnamed block is shown on the 1929 map, near the junction of Fisher Road with SH1, about north of the junction with the Kimihia branch. That junction was south of Auckland and from Wellington. One source said it was much nearer Huntly, where Kimihia Rd crossed the railway. Kimihia Rd level crossing was closed to traffic in 1945.

History

The station opened when the Main Trunk was extended from

Mercer Mercer may refer to: Business * Mercer (car), a defunct American automobile manufacturer (1909–1925) * Mercer (consulting firm), a large human resources consulting firm headquartered in New York City * Mercer (occupation), a merchant or trader ...

Ngāruawāhia Ngāruawāhia () is a town in the Waikato region of the North Island of New Zealand. It is located north-west of Hamilton at the confluence of the Waikato and Waipā Rivers, adjacent to the Hakarimata Range. Ngāruawāhia is in the Hamilton Ur ...

, on 13 August 1877, built on part of Robert Reilly Ralph's (later owner of Ralph's coalmine) farm. Kimihia was usually not shown in timetables and was often one of the minor stations not served by passenger trains. An 1894 petition asked for Kimihia siding be converted into a

flag station In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, st ...

. In 1895 trains called at Kimihia Siding for school children and it became a flag station from 7 February 1896. By the end of that year it had a shelter shed, passenger platform and a

passing loop A passing loop (UK usage) or passing siding (North America) (also called a crossing loop, crossing place, refuge loop or, colloquially, a hole) is a place on a single line railway or tramway, often located at or near a station, where trains or ...

for 37 wagons. To ease congestion on the single track railway, a

capable of holding 72 wagons was built in 1929. Work on doubling the track northwards started in 1937 and the station closed on 27 August 1939, when double track working started between Ohinewai and Huntly. In 1944 Kimihia became part of Huntly Borough.

Kimihia colliery branch

Powers to construct the mine branch were given in 1885. Initially it was a branch around the southern shore of

Lake Kimihia Lake Kimihia is located approximately 5 km to the Northeast of Huntly, in the Waikato Region of New Zealand. Lake Kimihia is a riverine lake, which links to the Waikato River. Lake Kimihia was significantly modified as a result of open ca ...

to the Taupiri Reserve Colliery Co. mine, which was opened on 1 August 1887 and named the Taupiri Branch. That mine closed due to a fire in 1910. State Coal Mines started an

opencast Open-pit mining, also known as open-cast or open-cut mining and in larger contexts mega-mining, is a surface mining technique of extracting rock or minerals from the earth from an open-air pit, sometimes known as a borrow. This form of mining ...

mine in 1943 to extract the coal left by the previous mine. It produced coal from 1944, when agreement was reached to use the Taupiri Coal Co's sidings, but the branch wasn't reopened until 1946. The opencast mine closed in 1977 and was replaced by Huntly East Mine in 1978. On 21 August 1979 the first loaded train used the branch, which started north of Huntly and extended east to the coal loading bins. From 7 July 1981 the Railway Corporation took over maintenance of the branch from the Mines Department. Until 2013 the mine was producing about 450,000 tonnes of coal a year, some 95% of it going by rail to

Glenbrook steel mill New Zealand Steel Limited is the owner of the Glenbrook Steel Mill, the steel mill located 40 kilometres south of Auckland, in Glenbrook, New Zealand. The mill was constructed in 1968 and began producing steel products in 1969. Currently, the ...

. The mine closure was announced on 8 October and the branch closed on 21 October 2015. It was when lifted in 2017. 2019_view_of_Kimihia_Branch_from_NIMT

References

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External links

1952 photo of branch at the mineVideo of the line in 2017
Railway stations in New Zealand Buildings and structures in Waikato Rail transport in Waikato Railway stations opened in 1877 Railway stations closed in 1939 Huntly, New Zealand 1877 establishments in New Zealand