The Murupara Branch is a long branch railway line from the

East Coast Main Trunk The East Coast Main Trunk (ECMT) is a railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, originally running between Hamilton and Taneatua via Tauranga, connecting the Waikato with the Bay of Plenty. The ECMT now runs between Hamilton and Kawera ...

(ECMT) at

Kawerau Kawerau is a town in the Bay of Plenty region of the North Island of New Zealand. It is situated 100 km south-east of Tauranga and 58 km east of Rotorua. It is the seat of the Kawerau District Council, and the only town in Kawerau Distric ...

Murupara Murupara is a town located in the Whakatāne District and Bay of Plenty Region of New Zealand's North Island. The town is situated in an isolated part of the region between the Kaingaroa Forest and Te Urewera protected area, on the banks of the ...

, built to serve a new pulp and paper mill harvesting the radiata pine trees of the

Kaingaroa Forest Kaingaroa Forest covers 2900 km² of the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand, and is the largest forest plantation in New Zealand, and the second largest in the Southern Hemisphere (after the 6000km² Sabie/Graskop plantation in South Afri ...

on the Kaingaroa Plateau in the

Bay of Plenty The Bay of Plenty ( mi, Te Moana-a-Toi) is a region of New Zealand, situated around a bight of the same name in the northern coast of the North Island. The bight stretches 260 km from the Coromandel Peninsula in the west to Cape Runawa ...

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 ...

. The line was the last major extension of the

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 ...

(NZR) network, of from Hawkens Junction, west of

Edgecumbe Edgecumbe is a town in the Bay of Plenty of the North Island of New Zealand, 15 kilometres to the west of Whakatāne and eight kilometres south of the Bay's coast. It is the main service town for the agricultural region surrounding the plains ...

, to Kawerau and 57 km from Kawerau to Murupara. The portion from Hawkens Junction to Kawerau was known as the Kawerau Branch until 1978, when it became part of the ECMT, and the former ECMT from Hawkens Junction to Taneatua became the Taneatua Branch.

History

Construction of the line began in 1951, but in March 1953 it was decided to build the mill at Kawerau not Murupara, because Kawerau had geothermal steam for energy, and the climate of Murupara in winter is misty, so was less suitable for a large town. The branch was built via Kawerau to Murupara rather than directly from Hawkens Junction near Edgecumbe. The Kawerau to Murupara section required major earthworks to limit the ruling grade against loaded log trains to 1 in 60. The easy grades between Kawerau and the port of

Mt Maunganui Mount Maunganui (, ) is a major residential, commercial and industrial suburb of the Tauranga metropolitan area, located on a peninsula to the north-east of Tauranga's city centre. It was an independent town from Tauranga until the completio ...

allow very long trains of over 2,000 tonnes. Work on the section to the mill started on 12 April 1953; the rails reached Kawerau in August and the first train arrived at Kawerau on 26 October, six months after work started. The major earthworks on the Kawerau to Murupara section were completed rapidly with heavy earthmoving machinery, then prefabricated track sections were laid at the rate of 3 km a week. The first logs were loaded at Galatea (48 km from Kawerau and 9 km from Murupara) on 4 April 1955. A regular service to Murupara operated from 15 January 1957, although the line to Kawerau and Murupara was operated by the Ministry of Works (the successor to the PWD or Public Works Department) until 1 July 1957.

Motive power

As the line ran through forest areas, steam locomotives were not used on the line, and motive power has only ever been provided by diesel engines. Initially, the D^E class were used for construction then for log trains on the still unsettled track bed; this has given the D^E class an unofficial status of the first mainline diesel-electric locomotive in NZR service. The D^E class were then replaced by D^G class locomotives in 1957. From October 1963 a pair of D^A class diesel locomotives were used, hauling 1,500-tonne log trains. From the 1980s to early 2000s the standard train was a trio of DC class locomotives hauling a gross load of 2,400 tonnes on 53 USL bogie log wagons. The primary motive power is now a pair of DL class locomotives. The annual tonnage of logs increased from 730,000 tons in 1960 to 1,126,000 tonnes in 1965. After the opening of the

Kaimai Tunnel The Kaimai Tunnel is a railway tunnel through the Kaimai Range in the North Island of New Zealand. Since it was opened in 1978, it has held the title of longest tunnel, at , in New Zealand, assuming this distinction from the previous title hol ...

in 1978 the section to Kawerau from Hawkens Junction was formally incorporated into the East Coast Main Trunk designation, with the line to Taneatua downgraded to branch status. The section from Kawerau to Murupara became the ''Murupara Branch'', and then the ''Murupara Line'' from 2011.

References

Citations

Bibliography

* * Hermann, Bruce J; ''North Island Branch Lines'' pp 42,43 (2007, New Zealand Railway & Locomotive Society, Wellington) * {{Use dmy dates, date=November 2013 Railway lines in New Zealand Rail transport in the Bay of Plenty Region Railway lines opened in 1955 3 ft 6 in gauge railways in New Zealand 1955 establishments in New Zealand