TRIP REPORT: RAILWAY TRIP
　
Date: 28th February 2010
Trip leader: Ian Hanford
Trip report: Dave Haycock
　
As we trundled to the meeting place at Belgrove my thoughts were on the town end of the 1874 Midland Railway, of the Nelson Station, where the Warehouse - Countdown - Fire Station now stand, of the 15,000 metres of fill quarried from the Ridge End, where Spotlight and the Electricity Sub-Station are now, to fill the mudflat for the station yard, of the line to the port, beside Haven Road. Then of the steel tracks beside St. Vincent Street to Victory Square, over Bishopdale, under the overbridge at the now Annesbrook roundabout and onto the plains.

Omaio Retirement Village was built on the Stoke Station site. Stock was unloaded at the Nelson Freezing Co’s back door. Richmond Station site is now Star Trucks and others. My mother Gladys Maud best travelled to and from Nelson Girls College daily on the train. The overbridge at Three Brothers Corner. Hope Station was off Ranzau Road, beside the Valetta Timber Co’s sawmill. Brightwater in the Main Street beside Lawrys Lime Works. Spring Grove, between Telenius Corner and Baigents Tree Nursery, the railway crossing sign secretly removed before the lines removal in 1955 to be reinstated some years later.

The main south road thru Wakefield now traverses the former station, the old road (now blocked one end) was on the other side of the carpark and had two right angle corners.
Well, here we are at the Belgrove Station with windmill to replenish the steam loco’s water already.

Hullo, hullo, oh hullo long time no see and 17 4WDs follow Ian and Raewyn on the Glenhope railway trip. As we start to climb Spooners the old rail overbridge is clearly visible on our right, while the track formation to our left is now a forest access road.

As we bottom Spooners on the other side, a hard left takes us to the tunnel carpark, where we meet Bob Stewart, the tunnel custodian, who leads us thru the tunnel and back and plies us with much information:- First used 1897, tunnel 1474 yards long, cost 60,000 pounds, 15 months to construct, dug from both ends, meeting within 8mm horizontally and 7" vertically. Walls of boxed and poured concrete with the arched top of concrete blocks, made on site at 1,000/day with English cement. We’re off again heading for Tapawera and smoko. Track formation and bridges beside the road down Noriss’s Gully to Bigg’s Corner. Robert (Bobby) Ellis’s homestead is pointed out on the left. His was thought to be the first house in Nelson province to have electricity and definitely the first to have an electric stove when he coupled a 110 volt D.C.generator to a water powered turbine, formerly used to drive a flaxmill, in 1908. In 1910 he bought a Mr.Trapnell’s flour mill at Brightwater, installing a turbine in place of the waterwheel, making Radium Brand flour by day and power by night, trading as "The Waimea Electric Supply and Manufacturing Co. Ltd. He sold out to The Waimea Electric Power Board in 1933. W.E.P.B. also bought the Motueka Borough Council Suction Gas Power Plant in 1933 and built the Brooklyn hydro scheme in 1934.

ealignment now puts the road thru the Motupiko Station to the Kohatu Hotel, known as the Terminus Hotel when the line ended here till 1912, with the Bromell’s and Grindle’s being long term publicans.
As we drop off the terrace, the line crossed the road, just past the cemetery, with access to the two farms on the right being thru two big top hung sliding gates, one each side of the track. See the concrete bridges amongst the young bluegums beside the road. While having a cup of tea at Tapawera we check out the relocated/restored Kiwi Station and photo boards.

Turning left towards Tadmor we cross the new road bridge which replaced the 1904 built wooden road/rail bridge. Past the new Forest Service Headquarters, built when the H.Q. and village shifted out of Golden Downs, now in a very rundown state after the Lange govt. sold the forest off. On up the Tadmor Valley, past Kiwi (where the ladies were arrested for sitting on the line, to stop the demolition train [Sonja Davies and Ruth Page are two names I recollect]) Tui and Kaka to the Tadmor Saddle. A detour on the right takes us to see the deep cutting (instead of a tunnel) in the saddle and now clearly visible since the recent forest fire and subsequent log harvest. Beyond this we stop for lunch at a weir, built in 1980, on the Glenhope River to divert water thru a pipe dug into the dividing ridge, into the Tadmor catchment to supplement water for raspberry irrigation. Back to the saddle and down the dry weather road to Glenhope, and a look at the railway station which is still in remarkably good order, very original and interesting.

Next we visit Brian and Pam’s "Bramble Wood Gardens", complete with a 1908 rail carriage, steam fed ponds with goldfish, water features and islands, sculptures and much, much more.
As Pam led us up the garden path, I couldn’t help but think, what a waist. This very pleasant and obviously talented woman had chosen to shorten her life with bloody cigarettes - she was huffing and puffing, panting and gasping like loco WD40 with a full compliment of wagons climbing the Tadmor Saddle. Sorry, that should have read waste.

Next stop Kawatiri, site of the Pikomanu Public Works camp, and a walk thru the short tunnel over the river. The line continued to Gowan Bridge and the goods shed was built (since being
relocated across the road and converted into a house) beside Dizzy’s store.
Work continued, with a steam shovel digging at the narrows and spoil being dumped as an embankment on the left at Grassy Flat and now growing a good crop of kanuka. Work stopped for the Christmas break in 1930 and never restarted, with line being pulled up back to Glenhope.
The trip concluded with a debrief at the Tophouse Hotel.
Three more off the bucket list in one day: walk Spooners Tunnel, a poke around the Glenhope Station, and a drink at the Tophouse Hotel, an excellent result.

Thanks Hank.
Mountain Man