Summerlea is a lightly populated locality on the West Coast of New Zealand's

South Island The South Island ( , 'the waters of Pounamu, Greenstone') is the largest of the three major islands of New Zealand by surface area, the others being the smaller but more populous North Island and Stewart Island. It is bordered to the north by ...

. Summerlea is on the

Tasman Sea The Tasman Sea is a marginal sea of the South Pacific Ocean, situated between Australia and New Zealand. It measures about across and about from north to south. The sea was named after the Dutch explorer Abel Janszoon Tasman, who in 1642 wa ...

coastline with the Glasgow Range to the east. To the north of the town is the neighbouring settlement of Mokihinui and the rivermouth of the Mōkihinui River. State Highway 67 passes through the locality. It is included in the Mokihinui statistical area by Statistics New Zealand, and according to the

2013 New Zealand census The 2013 New Zealand census was the thirty-third national census. "The National Census Day" used for the census was on Tuesday, 5 March 2013. The population of New Zealand was counted as 4,242,048 – an increase of 214,101 or 5.3% over the 20 ...

, Mokihinui has a population of 186, an increase of 15 people since the 2006 census. In the early 1890s, a

branch line A branch line is 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. Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located ...

railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

was opened from Westport through Summerlea, opening to

Seddonville Seddonville is a lightly populated locality on the West Coast of New Zealand's South Island. It is most famous for the historical role it played in New Zealand's coal mining industry. Geography Seddonville is in the isolated north of the Wes ...

on 23 February 1895 and thus acquiring the name of the

Seddonville Branch The Seddonville Branch, later truncated as the Ngākawau Branch, is a branch line railway in the West Coast, New Zealand, West Coast region of New Zealand's South Island. Construction began in 1874 and it reached its terminus at the Mokihinui ...

. Passenger services were provided to Summerlea by

mixed train A mixed train or mixed consist is a train that contains both passenger and freight cars or wagons. In some countries, the term refers to a freight train carrying various different types of freight rather a single commodity. Although common in the ...

s until 14 October 1946, when the line became freight-only. Coal was almost the sole traffic on the line from this point, and when coal mining activity declined in the 1970s, the line's maintenance costs came to outweigh revenue. Accordingly, the line closed beyond

Ngakawau Hector and Ngakawau are two lightly populated settlements located at the mouth of the Ngākawau River in the West Coast region of New Zealand. Both settlements are situated on State Highway 67 between Westport and Karamea. Despite a low popul ...

on 3 May 1981, and much of the line's formation can still be seen passing through the countryside around Summerlea.David Leitch and Brian Scott, ''Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways'', rev. ed. (Wellington: Grantham House, 1998), 52-4.

References

Buller District Populated places in the West Coast Region {{WestCoastNZ-geo-stub