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

in the

Northland Region Northland (), officially the Northland Region, is the northernmost of New Zealand's 16 regions of New Zealand, local government regions. New Zealanders sometimes refer to it as the Winterless North because of its mild climate all throughout t ...

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 largest settlement of the Northland Region. It is part of the Whangarei District, created in 1989 from the former Whangarei City, Whangarei County and Hikurangi Town councils to admi ...

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 penins ...

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 Whangārei southwards and into the northern head of Whangārei Harbour. Its lower length forms the eastern boundary of the city. The banks along the lower reaches are par ...

, 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 Ocea ...

. 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 subfamily Larinae. They are most closely related to terns and skimmers, distantly related to auks, and even more distantly related to waders. Until the 21st century, most gulls were placed ...

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. New Zealand State Highway 1, State Highway 1 passes through Ōkaihau making it fairly busy. Ōkaihau has a primary school (Ōkaihau Primary ...

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 to ...

, and construction of the

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

that would link the isolated section to

Auckland Auckland ( ; ) is a large metropolitan city in the North Island of New Zealand. It has an urban population of about It is located in the greater Auckland Region, the area governed by Auckland Council, which includes outlying rural areas and ...

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. The name

was first officially used as an alternative to Grahamtown in 1910.

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 was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

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 Waipu may refer to: New Zealand * Waipu Lagoons, near New Plymouth *Waipu, New Zealand, town in Northland * Waipu River, river in Northland Taiwan * Waipu District, Taichung *Waipu Fishing Port, Miaoli County Other uses * Waipu, a reaction video ...

, and although

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

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 Region, Northland, New Zealand, southeast of the city of Whangārei. It is the location of Marsden Point Oil R ...

as an oil port, and after the

1973 oil crisis In October 1973, the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) announced that it was implementing a total oil embargo against countries that had supported Israel at any point during the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which began after Eg ...

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

Waikato The Waikato () is a region of the upper North Island of New Zealand. It covers the Waikato District, Waipā District, Matamata-Piako District, South Waikato District and Hamilton City, as well as Hauraki, Coromandel Peninsula, the nort ...

. 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.

References

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