Misplaced Pages

#541458

33-631: The Onerahi Branch , sometimes known as the Grahamtown Railway , was a branch line railway in the Northland Region of New Zealand. It operated from 1911 until 1933 and linked the city of Whangārei to the nearby harbour in Onerahi . In the early 1880s, a wharf was established at Whangārei in the tidal part of the Hātea River , in the upper reaches of Whangārei Harbour . Roughly 20 years later

66-510: 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

99-460: 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,

132-464: 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

165-522: 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

198-653: 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

231-786: 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

264-523: 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

297-461: 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

330-552: 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

363-529: 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

SECTION 10

#1732851240542

396-717: 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

429-1013: 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

462-761: 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

495-672: 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

528-417: 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

561-520: 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 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

594-537: 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 set in there was no reason to continue operating the railway. It closed on 30 June 1933. In 1937,

627-666: 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

660-599: 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

693-469: 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

SECTION 20

#1732851240542

726-552: 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

759-534: 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

792-453: 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

825-558: 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 and Opua , and construction of the North Auckland Line that would link the isolated section to Auckland and the national rail network was underway. The name Onerahi was first officially used as an alternative to Grahamtown in 1910. For over

858-556: 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

891-507: 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

924-473: The wharf was removed. 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. In the 1970s, two proposals to build a similar branch line from Whangārei to a deepwater port were made. This line

957-496: 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

990-478: Was no longer seen as necessary. Many years later, a deepwater harbour was established at nearby Marsden Point as an oil port, and after the 1973 oil crisis it was proposed to convert the nearby Marsden B Power Station to use coal from the Waikato . 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

1023-488: 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 ,

Onerahi Branch - Misplaced Pages Continue

1056-478: 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. Branch line A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off

1089-461: 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 , and although World War I 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

#541458