Eyreton Branch - Operation

Operation

The first train to West Eyreton was hauled by a diminutive A class tank steam locomotive. For many years, the line was serviced by one service each way per day. These were mixed trains that carried both passengers and freight, and with the opening of the line to Bennetts Junction, they ran through to Oxford. Much traffic carried on the Eyreton Branch was actually freight from Oxford using the Eyreton route as a shortcut to the Main North Line. Concerns that the line would not be profitable were fulfilled by low traffic volumes even before the era of widespread competition from road, and as road transport increased in competitiveness, freight dwindled. By 1927, only four services ran per week, and in 1930, a Royal Commission suggested that the line be closed unless locals wished to fund the line. Nonetheless, the Railways Department kept operating the line, though on 9 February 1931, passenger services were cancelled due to low patronage and the link with Bennetts Junction on the Oxford Branch was closed. However, the Eyreton Branch did not terminate at its original terminus of West Eyreton as five kilometres of the link with the Oxford Branch was retained, with the new terminus in Horrelville.

By 1950, only two trains a week ran, on Tuesdays and Thursdays. This in itself contributed to declining freight quantities, as wagons delivered on a Thursday would not be collected until the next week, an undesirably long delay for most businesses. Nonetheless, a flour mill along the line in Wetheral was generating some traffic for the line, and as traffic beyond it did not justify the line's existence, it was closed from Wetheral to Horrelville on 26 May 1954. By April 1965, the remaining portion of the line between Kaiapoi and Wetheral was also closed.