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35-422: The Dunback and Makareao Branches were two connected branch line railways , part of New Zealand 's national rail network . Located in the Otago region of the South Island , both lines were 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) in length and shared the first 11 kilometres (6.8 mi). The Dunback Branch, also known as the Waihemo Branch , opened in 1885 and closed in 1968; the Makareao Branch, also known as

70-428: A spur line . Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located on a main line. Branch lines may also connect two or more main lines. An industrial spur is a type of secondary track used by railroads to allow customers at a location to load and unload railcars without interfering with other railroad operations. Industrial spurs can vary greatly in length and railcar capacity depending on

105-510: A common sight along railroads in industrial and rural cities alike. As automobile and roadway technology improved throughout the early and mid-20th century, most low volume industry spurs were abandoned in favor of the greater flexibility and economic savings of trucking. Today, railroads remain the most economical way to ship large quantities of material, a fact that is reflected in industrial spurs. Most modern day spurs serve very large industries that require hundreds, if not thousands, of carloads

140-658: A further extension in mind, and by 1884 work on completing the line to Dunback was under way. The branch followed the Shag River , and on 29 August 1885 it was formally opened. An extension of this line to Ranfurly and beyond was proposed as a possible route for a railway to Central Otago , but the route of the Otago Central Railway ultimately reached Ranfurly by passing through the Taieri and Maniototo regions. The Makareao Branch followed approximately 15 years later, with

175-464: A mainline, they tend to have lower maintenance and signaling (train control) standards. Before the rise of the long-distance trucking in the early 1930s, railroads were the primary means of transportation around the world. Industries of the era were commonly built along railroad lines specifically to allow for easy access to shipping. Short (under a mile, oftentimes only several hundred yards) industrial spurs with very small (under ten car) capacities were

210-653: A number of railway companies, with sidings and branches operated by private companies or single railway companies. Railway points (UK) or switches (US) are usually set in the direction of the main line by default. Failure to do so has been a factor in several fatal railway accidents , for example the Buttevant Rail Disaster in Ireland, and the Graniteville train crash in the US. This rail-transport related article

245-455: A passenger carriage (or more if necessary) was attached to a goods train. In 1950, five trains operated a week, and with non-limestone traffic dwindling it was inevitable that the Dunback section would be closed and services concentrated on Makareao. Closure of the four kilometres (2.5 mi) from Inch Valley to Dunback took place on 1 January 1968 and limestone became the line's sole traffic with

280-786: A section of the West Rail line . Discontinued services include the Sha Tau Kok Railway and the Wo Hop Shek Branch . A spur line to Siu Sai Wan has been proposed. Delhi On the Delhi Metro , the Blue Line has a Branch Line with 8 Stations, linking Yamuna Bank to Ghaziabad via Anand Vihar ISBT and terminating at Vaishali. The first section of the Branch opened on 8 January 2010 with Anand Vihar as its terminal with six stations. It

315-523: A subsidy for grain transport, and instead allowed railways to absorb branch line subsidies freely without making effort to improve the profitability of the lines. The term "grain-dependent branch lines" began being used as early as 1978 to refer to the special case of these branch lines in agricultural areas whose viability depended on the economics of grain transport. The Western Grain Transportation Act of 1983 addressed this case specifically, but

350-461: A year. There is an international branch line between Italy and Vatican: the 300-metre Vatican Railway , connecting from the Pisa-Rome railway mainline at Roma San Pietro railway station , to Vatican City station . Many British railway branch lines were closed as a result of the " Beeching cuts " in the 1960s, although some have been re-opened as heritage railways . The smallest branch line that

385-552: Is still in operation in the UK is the Stourbridge Town Branch Line from Stourbridge Junction going to Stourbridge Town . Operating on a single track, the journey is 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometres) long and the train takes around two and a half minutes to complete its journey. In North America, little-used branch lines are often sold by large railroads to become new common carrier short-line railroads of their own. Throughout

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420-529: The Bay of Plenty Region , lines were built inland to provide rail access to large logging operations. Today, many of the branch lines have been closed, including almost all of the general-purpose country lines. Those that remain serve ports or industries far from main lines such as coal mines, logging operations, large dairying factories, and steelworks . In Auckland and Wellington , two branch lines in each city exist solely for commuter passenger trains. For more, see

455-717: The Gladstone Branch in New Jersey; as well as the New Canaan Branch , Danbury Branch , and Waterbury Branch in Connecticut . The Long Island Rail Road also refers to its services as "branches". In Chile, there are a lot of branch lines on its main line, of only a few remain operational. Most only operating in turistic services (like the Antilhue-Valdivia branch line), others have been taken over by other railways (like

490-1013: The Grand Trunk , Canadian National , or Canadian Pacific ) which would acquire formerly independent short line railways for use as branch lines, with the short line often continuing to exist as a subsidiary. For example, when the Canadian Pacific acquired the Algoma Eastern Railway (a short line) in 1930, it soon after abandoned much of the Algoma Eastern mainline, but retained sections close to Algoma Eastern–Canadian Pacific junctions as short branch lines or spurs. The National Transportation Act of 1967 provided government subsidies for branch lines. Western railway development in Canada worked in concert with land settlement and cultivation, as pioneers were settled near railway lines, often on land

525-709: The Inch Valley Railway or the Inch Valley Branch , opened in 1900 and operated for 89 years to 1989. The first few kilometres of the Dunback Branch were under construction by March 1880 to access a deposit of shingle for use on railway construction and maintenance elsewhere and in operation by 1882. This spur left the Main South Line just north of Palmerston with its points facing south towards Palmerston station. These initial kilometres were built with

560-761: The North South Line between Jurong East and Choa Chu Kang stations was operated as a separate line, known as the Branch line . It was merged into the North–South Line with the opening of the Woodlands Extension in 1996. The future Jurong Region Line and Cross Island Line will also have branch lines. New Zealand once had a very extensive network of branch lines, especially in the South Island regions of Canterbury , Otago , and Southland . Many were built in

595-672: The South Tseung Kwan O Spur Line to LOHAS Park station , opened in 2009. Earlier, a spur line was built in 1985 on the East Rail line to serve Racecourse station , bypassing Fo Tan station . Also, the Tsim Sha Tsui Extension  [ yue ] was built in 2004 on the East Rail line to serve East Tsim Sha Tsui station . However, after the Kowloon Southern Link was completed in 2009, this spur line turns into

630-417: The list of New Zealand railway lines . Main line (railway) For capacity reasons, main lines in many countries have at least a double track and often contain multiple parallel tracks. Main line tracks are typically operated at higher speeds than branch lines and are generally built and maintained to a higher standard than yards and branch lines. Main lines may also be operated under shared access by

665-472: The Dunback Branch at Inch Valley to the terminus in Makareao. The following stations were on the Dunback and Makareao Branches (in brackets is the distance from Palmerston): The line then split and had two termini: Dunback was the only manned station. 100 metres (330 ft) before Inch Valley, a short siding ran to a ballast pit and had a 39-wagon loop. The points faced towards Dunback. The Dunback Branch

700-588: The Makareao Branch significantly added to traffic on the line, with large quantities of limestone transported by rail. This industrial traffic sustained the line, allowing the branch to largely avoid the slow decline that plagued many rural branch lines in New Zealand in the 20th century. By the late 1920s, the short section from Inch Valley to Dunback was losing money and passenger services ceased on 10 August 1930. These services had been solely mixed trains , where

735-666: The San Rosendo-Talcahuano branch line, which has been taken over by Biotrén and the Laja-Talcahuano train service) however, there is one branch line that still remains as fully operative. The Talca-Constitución branch line, which uses trains with bus motors. Two extensions to the MTR rapid transit network were built as branches of existing lines: the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line to Lok Ma Chau station , which opened in 2007; and

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770-599: The U.S. state of New Jersey . The line is a short branch of the Northeast Corridor Line , running from Princeton Junction northwest to Princeton with no intermediate stops. Also known as the "Dinky Line", at 2.9 mi (4.7 km) it is the shortest scheduled commuter rail line in the United States. The run takes 4 minutes, 47 seconds. Other than the Princeton Line, other surviving branch lines include

805-469: The United States and Canada, branch lines link smaller towns too distant from the main line to be served efficiently, or to serve a certain industrial site such as a power station either because of a location away from the main line or to reduce congestion. They were typically built to lower standards, using lighter rail and shallow roadbeds when compared to main lines. Much of Canada's branch line history relates to large rail transport conglomerates (such as

840-452: The cement works' closure the previous December. Many remnants are still quite visible, due to the line's relatively recent closure. Bridges, abutments, culverts and the formation are very visible for the entire length of the route, some railway gates and mile/kilometre pegs are still in place, and even a few rails remain. Meadowbanks still has its stockyard, and there are loading banks at Dunback. In Makareao, Taylor's Lime continue to operate

875-552: The first president of the Canadian National Railway , said that although most branch lines cannot pay for themselves, they are even essential to make main lines pay. In the United States, abandonment of unproductive branch lines was a byproduct of deregulation of the rail industry through the Staggers Act . The Princeton Branch is a commuter rail line and service owned and operated by New Jersey Transit (NJT) in

910-481: The four kilometres (2.5 mi) of track constructed by the Public Works Department and opened on 31 March 1900. Its ownership passed through a series of government departments before ultimately coming under the control of New Zealand Railways . This line was built through a rural district, serving no towns or localities; it was built solely to access a lime works and had a steep climb from its junction with

945-534: The late 19th century to open up inland regions for farming and other economic activities. The branches in the South Island regions were often general-purpose lines that carried predominantly agricultural traffic, but lines elsewhere were often built to serve a specific resource: on the West Coast , an extensive network of branch lines was built in rugged terrain to serve coal mines, while in the central North Island and

980-505: The line being dieselised in May 1968. Services operated thrice weekly to Dunedin's Burnside Cement Works, with the trains of four-wheeled wagons, typically hauled by DJ class locomotives, nicknamed "stone trains". From at least 1952 trains were limited to 30 kilometres per hour (19 mph) for the entire line, and in 1988 this dropped to 20 kilometres per hour (12 mph). During these later years occasional passenger excursions were operated down

1015-666: The line by railway enthusiasts and organisations, notably the Otago Excursion Train Trust . The end of the Makareao Branch was sudden. Declining demand led to the closure of the Burnside Cement Works in December 1988, removing the limestone traffic that was the line's livelihood. It was kept open for a few months due to hopes that the cement works would be reopened, but this did not come to pass and formal closure came on 1 June 1989, though stone trains had not run since

1050-556: The railways had owned. However, by the mid-20th century, railways began neglecting lines in western agricultural regions. This was historically driven by factors such as the Crow Rate , which regulated the price railways could charge for shipping grain. Railways had little incentive to invest in rural Prairie branch lines, but were legally unable to abandon them under the National Transportation Act , which also did not provide

1085-507: The requirements of the customer the spur is serving. In heavily industrialized areas, it is not uncommon for one industrial spur to have multiple sidings to several different customers. Typically, spurs are serviced by local trains responsible for collecting small numbers of railcars and delivering them to a larger yard, where these railcars are sorted and dispatched in larger trains with other cars destined to similar locations. Because industrial spurs generally have less capacity and traffic than

Dunback and Makareao Branches - Misplaced Pages Continue

1120-471: The works for agricultural production, and substantial railway remnants exist. There are no bridges remaining beyond Inch Valley; the 15-span trestle bridge crossing the Shag River on the Makareao Branch was demolished in the mid 1990s. 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

1155-496: Was further extended to Vaishali in 2011. The line is planned to be extended from Vaishali to Mohan Nagar via Sahibabad Station to link with the main line. The East West Line of the MRT system in Singapore has a two-station branch to Changi Airport . The first station, Expo , opened in 2001. It was extended to Changi Airport station the next year. From 1990 to 1996, the section of

1190-488: Was repealed in 1994 in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement and budget-balancing initiatives in favour of a one-time payout by the federal government directly to farmers, to arrange transport of grain themselves. From the mid-1970s to the late 2010s, more than 9,300 kilometres (5,800 mi) of Prairie branch lines were abandoned or had a discontinuance of service. David Blyth Hanna ,

1225-595: Was the nearest railhead to the Maniototo region at its opening in 1885 and initially catered for traffic from beyond just the local Dunback area. This included providing supplies for the construction of the Otago Central Railway. When the Otago Central was opened to Ranfurly in 1898, the Dunback Branch was deprived of its wider importance, and it was relegated to catering for solely local traffic. The 1900 opening of

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