The Onerahi Branch, sometimes known as the Grahamstown Railway, was 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 ...

in the

Northland Region The Northland Region ( mi, Te Tai Tokerau) is the northernmost of New Zealand's 16 local government regions. New Zealanders sometimes refer to it as the Winterless North because of its mild climate all throughout the year. The main population ...

of New Zealand. It operated from 1911 until 1933 and linked the city of

Whangārei Whangārei () is the northernmost city in New Zealand and the regional capital of Northland Region. It is part of the Whangarei District, Whangārei District, a local body created in 1989 from the former Whangārei City, Whangārei County and ...

to the nearby harbour in

Onerahi Onerahi, for half a century known as Grahamtown, is a seaside suburb of Whangārei, New Zealand's northernmost city. It is the city's only seaside suburb. It is located 9 km south-east of the centre of Whangārei and is principally a peninsu ...

History

In the early 1880s, a wharf was established at Whangārei in the tidal part of the

Hātea River The Hātea River is a river of New Zealand. It flows from the north-east of Whangarei southwards and into the northern head of Whangarei Harbour. Its lower length forms the eastern boundary of the city. The banks along the lower reaches are parks ...

, in the upper reaches of

Whangārei Harbour Whangārei Harbour is a large harbour on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The harbour stretches from Whangārei City, and the termination of the Hātea River, south east around the Onerahi peninsula and out to the Pacific Oce ...

. Roughly 20 years later the maintenance bill was rising and the wharf's inadequacies were being revealed as it was too shallow for some vessels to access. The deep-water wharves in nearby Onerahi were considerably more desirable, and in 1899 approval was granted to extend the railway from Whangārei to Onerahi. It took until July 1901 for construction to get underway, and in May 1902 a contract was let to build a bridge across the Hātea River. It was 323 metres long with a central lifting span, and completed in 1904. It was not long before the bridge was nicknamed the

Gull Gulls, or colloquially seagulls, are seabirds of the family Laridae in the suborder Lari. They are most closely related to the terns and skimmers and only distantly related to auks, and even more distantly to waders. Until the 21st century, m ...

Roost, for obvious reasons. Some work continued for two years after the bridge was finished, but construction ground to a halt in 1906 and no more work was done for four years. It recommenced during 1910 and the line was finished the next year. It came into the possession of the Railways Department on 2 October 1911. At this time, it was the southern end of the isolated Whangārei railway network, which extended northwards to

Ōkaihau Ōkaihau is a small town in the Northland Region of New Zealand's North Island, just north of Kaikohe. State Highway 1 passes through Ōkaihau making it fairly busy. Ōkaihau has a primary school (Ōkaihau Primary School) and a secondary scho ...

and

Opua Opua is a locality in the Bay of Islands, in the sub-tropical Northland Region of New Zealand. It is notable as the first port for overseas yachts arriving in the country after crossing the Pacific Ocean. In the original 1870s plans for the ...

, and construction of the

North Auckland Line The North Auckland Line (designation NAL) is a major section of New Zealand's national rail network, and is made up of the following parts: the portion of track that runs northward from Westfield Junction to Newmarket Station; from there, wes ...

that would link the isolated section to

Auckland Auckland (pronounced ) ( mi, Tāmaki Makaurau) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. The List of New Zealand urban areas by population, most populous urban area in the country and the List of cities in Oceania by po ...

and the

national rail network In United States railroading, the term national rail network, sometimes termed "U.S. rail network", refers to the entire network of interconnected standard gauge rail lines in North America. It does not include most subway or light rail lines. F ...

was underway.

Operation

For over a decade, the Onerahi Branch was a very busy line. When it opened, the primary method of transport between Auckland and Whangarei for both passengers and freight involved a steamer between Auckland and Onerahi and the train from Onerahi to Whangārei. Trains ran to connect with the steamers, with both dedicated goods services and "mixed" trains for both passengers and freight operating. In 1925, the North Auckland Line was completed, establishing a direct railway link from Whangārei to Auckland. This was far superior to the coastal steamers and both passenger and freight traffic on the Onerahi Branch rapidly spiralled downwards. The condition of the wharf was also declining, and when the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

set in there was no reason to continue operating the railway. It closed on 30 June 1933. In 1937, the wharf was removed.

Today

The Gull Roost bridge no longer exists, but some of the track has been converted into a public walking track, the Waimahanga Walkway. It includes footbridges over two creeks using the former railway bridge piers. Some formation not used by the walkway is also visible.

Similar proposals

In the 1970s, two proposals to build a similar branch line from Whangārei to a deepwater port were made. This line was to closely follow the route of a much earlier proposed line that was nearly built. In 1914, a railway was surveyed to run south from Whangārei to Waipu, and although

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

delayed the start of any work, the construction of formation was in progress in 1920. However, in 1924, construction was abandoned without any track being laid as road transport was beginning to compete with rail and an insignificant branch to serve local farming interests was no longer seen as necessary. Many years later, a deepwater harbour was established at nearby

Marsden Point Marsden Point is a broad, flat peninsula that is the southern head of the Whangārei Harbour entrance on the east coast of Northland, New Zealand, southeast of the city of Whangārei. It is the location of Marsden Point Oil Refinery and the N ...

as an oil port, and after the

1973 oil crisis The 1973 oil crisis or first oil crisis began in October 1973 when the members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC), led by Saudi Arabia, proclaimed an oil embargo. The embargo was targeted at nations that had supp ...

it was proposed to convert the nearby Marsden B Power Station to use coal from the

Waikato Waikato () is a Regions of New Zealand, local government region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipa District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton, New Zealand, Hamilton City ...

. The railways have always carried significant tonnages of Waikato coal, and this proposal would have certainly required a railway link had it come to fruition. In 1979 it was suggested that Marsden Point could be used for forestry export, and a 14-kilometre branch from the North Auckland Line was proposed, but it was not built. In 2007, however, the proposal was revived, and the Northland Regional Council is currently negotiating land purchases that would allow the link to be constructed.

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