Okahukura railway station was a station 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 ...

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 station opened when work started on the eastern end of the

Stratford–Okahukura Line The Stratford–Okahukura Line (SOL) is a secondary railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, between the Marton - New Plymouth Line (MNPL) and the North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) Railway, with 15 intermediate stations. It is long thro ...

. It was served by through trains on that line from 3 September 1933 (though rails were completed by 7 November 1932) to 2009, being east of Tuhua. The

Public Works Department This list indicates government departments in various countries dedicated to public works or infrastructure. See also * Public works * Ministry or Board of Public Works, the imperial Chinese ministry overseeing public projects from the Tang ...

operated a limited train service as far as Matiere from 1922. A junction with the NIMT at Ongarue, and even as far north as Puketutu (via Mokauiti and Ohura) had been considered before the Okahukura route was decided in 1911. Work started shortly after Sir Joseph Ward had turned the first sod, including the construction of workshops and 4 railway houses at Okahukura, and the station opened the following year. It seems that the initial service was provided by coaches attached to goods trains. A cattle yard and goods shed were added in 1915. In 1916 a porter was paid 9 shillings a week.

Patronage

Okahukura_railway_station_passenger_use_1928-1950

Passenger numbers peaked in 1934, as shown in the graph and table below - Okahukura_road-rail_bridge

Road-rail bridge

The concrete foundations of the road-rail bridge over the Ongarue River, on the Stratford line had been laid by 1918, but war-time steel shortages delayed further work. The first piles were sunk in 1916 and it had been completed by January 1922. In 2019 reopening of the line was listed as a possible future priority. Okahakura_Road_Rail_Bridge

Okahukura tunnel

long Okahukura tunnel, is up from Okahukura, along the Stratford line, on a 1 in 50 gradient. It was started in February 1914 and completed in December 1920, after digging out of

mudstone Mudstone, a type of mudrock, is a fine-grained sedimentary rock whose original constituents were clays or muds. Mudstone is distinguished from '' shale'' by its lack of fissility (parallel layering).Blatt, H., and R.J. Tracy, 1996, ''Petrology. ...

References

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External links

Photo of road-rail double deck bridge about 1930 Ruapehu District Defunct railway stations in New Zealand Buildings and structures in Manawatū-Whanganui Rail transport in Manawatū-Whanganui Railway stations opened in 1912 Railway stations closed in 1978