36-406: The Southbridge Branch was a branch line railway that formed part of New Zealand 's national rail network . It was located in the Canterbury region of the South Island and operated from 1875 until 1967. Five kilometres of the line remains open as the Hornby Branch , formerly the Hornby Industrial Line . On 2 November 1870, the Canterbury provincial government resolved to build
72-486: A locomotive depot operated in Southbridge. Passenger numbers peaked in 1924, with approximately 34,000 carried, and picnic trains to Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora were popular, but competition from road transport began to markedly increase, and the line was losing money in the late 1920s. In 1930, the decision was taken to close the Southbridge locomotive depot and operate all trains directly out of Christchurch, and this had
108-540: A school for many years, but it consolidated with Leeston School in the late 1930s. Doyleston featured a hall on the main street (the second on the site), but partly due to a car crash it was pulled down, making way for new housing. Doyleston's main attraction now is Osborne Park, which has been the centre for junior football in Ellesmere for a number of years. Doyleston covers 0.60 km (0.23 sq mi). It had an estimated population of 350 as of June 2024, with
144-510: 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
180-667: A line from Rolleston to Southbridge , as the district around Lake Ellesmere / Te Waihora had become an economically significant grain -growing region that produced almost a quarter of all wheat in New Zealand in the late 1860s. However, by April 1872, the decision had been taken to establish the junction with the Main South Line in Hornby and work began on the line's formation . Financial difficulties and delays in acquiring materials slowed construction initially, but on 26 April 1875,
216-464: 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
252-481: A notable short-term impact, as the line made a profit in 1938. However, in 1939, the Southbridge Branch again lost money and never returned to profitably. Post- World War II shortages and other economic factors led to the cancellation of passenger provisions on the line from 12 April 1951. After this stage, freight trains were only required to operate three or four times a week, and as traffic declined further,
288-784: A population density of 583 people per km . Doyleston is part of the Irwell statistical area . Doyleston had a population of 324 at the 2018 New Zealand census , an increase of 12 people (3.8%) since the 2013 census , and an increase of 75 people (30.1%) since the 2006 census . There were 120 households, comprising 174 males and 147 females, giving a sex ratio of 1.18 males per female, with 72 people (22.2%) aged under 15 years, 36 (11.1%) aged 15 to 29, 186 (57.4%) aged 30 to 64, and 27 (8.3%) aged 65 or older. Ethnicities were 93.5% European/ Pākehā , 10.2% Māori , 0.9% Pasifika , 1.9% Asian , and 1.9% other ethnicities. People may identify with more than one ethnicity. Although some people chose not to answer
324-786: 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
360-523: 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
396-461: 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
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#1733085956845432-569: 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 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
468-552: 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
504-529: 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
540-717: 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
576-1013: 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
612-761: 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
648-672: 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
684-450: The list of New Zealand railway lines . Doyleston Doyleston is a minor Canterbury town in the South Island of New Zealand. It was named after Joseph Hastings Doyle, a publican from Christchurch who moved to the locality. Doyleston promised to be one of the main townships in the Ellesmere area, but before long Leeston overtook it and some businesses moved there. Doyleston had
720-666: 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
756-413: The Southbridge Branch (in brackets is the distance from the junction at Hornby): In the very early years of the line, a passenger train ran once each way daily between Christchurch and Lincoln, but this service ceased before 1880 and the line settled down to a pattern of "mixed" trains that carried both goods and passengers. These trains ran twice daily in 1914, along with a daily goods-only service, and
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#1733085956845792-599: 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
828-469: 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
864-533: The decision was taken to abbreviate the line. On 30 June 1962, the 28 km section of line between Lincoln and Southbridge closed to all traffic. The Hornby-Lincoln section was then redesignated as the Hornby Industrial Line, which was cut back to Prebbleton station on 1 December 1967, and to the north side of the Springs Road crossing in 1986. The line still exists as far as Springs Road at Prebbleton,
900-552: 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
936-534: 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
972-495: The latter utilised as an engineer's workshop. Ellesmere retains concrete foundation remains, and in Irwell, rails can be found scattered at the station site and embedded in a road near an old factory. Some remnants of the line can be seen today in Southbridge, such as the rail and loading dock inside present-day Hamilton Seeds. The Christchurch Little River Rail Trail Trust is developing a trail from Christchurch to Little River and opened
1008-487: The line was opened to Springston . This gave the line a length of 17.74 kilometres (11.02 mi). On 13 July 1875, the rest of the line to Southbridge was opened, giving the branch a total length of 41.02 kilometres (25.49 mi) In 1880, construction of a sub-branch line off the Southbridge Branch to Little River from Lincoln began; this became the Little River Branch . The following stations were located on
1044-613: The line's length, though it does vanish at some points, at least in part because the flat terrain did not require substantial earthworks in the first place. There are also some bridge and culvert remains to be found along the line's former route, such as a footbridge near Lincoln utilising ex-railway abutments. Doyleston contains some of the most significant remnants, with the station site still in possession of its goods shed , loading bank, and passenger platform. Goods sheds can also be found in Leeston (demolished October 2020) and Springston, with
1080-452: The motorway and Marshs Road into the rail trail being proposed. Most of the land around the old Prebbleton yard has been developed for housing in the last five years, although some is in reserves and a pedestrian path runs along part of the formation south of Tosswill Road. Remnants of closed railways often diminish and disappear with the passage of time, but some relics of the Southbridge Branch remain. Its formation can be traced for much of
1116-522: The overbridge having been demolished in the late 1990s. The couple of kilometres still in use serves a number of industries and is shunted when required. Part of the formation near Prebbleton has been incorporated into the Little River Rail Trail, and a motorway being built just north of Prebbleton will see the line truncated just past the Watties siding, with incorporation of the disused track between
Southbridge Branch, New Zealand - Misplaced Pages Continue
1152-556: 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
1188-507: 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
1224-534: The section from Prebbleton to Lincoln in November 2006, which runs alongside the rail corridor on Springs Road. In September 2009 the Trust opened the section from Hornby to Prebbleton, which utilises the abandoned formation between Marshs Road and Springs Road. As at November 2009 a housing development on the old railway yard at Prebbleton is well underway with railway-themed street names. Branch line A branch line
1260-496: 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
1296-488: 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 ,
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