Ngapara and Tokarahi Branches - Operation

Operation

Once the Tokarahi Branch opened, the two lines employed some inventive working. Each morning mixed trains from the two termini met at Windsor Junction, where they were marshalled into a passenger train to Oamaru and a slower goods train. The reverse of this took place in the afternoon. Although the two branches were set up to open up country and provide transport for farmland, the freight on the line was not purely agricultural: a coal mine and, at the turn of the 20th century, a flour mill were located in Ngapara, and limestone for both building blocks and agricultural uses was loaded from quarries along the line. Enfield had a ballast pit until the late 1940s or early 1950s, used to supply materials for the protection of Oamaru's foreshore.

In the early days, motive power included the FA class, which were stationed in Ngapara and were known to haul the passenger train from Windsor Junction to Oamaru prior to 1918. Other classes utilised included the P, T, UB, UC, WD, and WF. T class are known to have operated to Tokarahi into the 1920s.

The Ngapara and Tokarahi Branches were some of the first in the country to lose their passenger services, in December 1926, when buses replaced trains in an attempt to stem increasing financial losses. In 1927, Ngapara's locomotive depot closed and trains operated from Oamaru. The Tokarahi Branch closed on 14 July 1930. This was due at least in part to the decline in wheat farming; at the start of the 20th century, thousands of acres of the crop were grown in the region, but by the 1920s it was no longer a significant commodity.

After the closure of the Tokarahi Branch, freight trains ran thrice weekly to Ngapara, typically on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. They departed Oamaru at 7:30am and arrived at Ngapara at 9:40am. The return working departed Ngapara at 10:30am, reaching Oamaru at 1:30pm. By 1951 trains ran on Tuesdays and Thursdays, except for services to the limeworks 4.74 kilometres from the junction with the main line, which provided a few hundred tonnes of freight daily. In 1958, regular services were cancelled and trains ran only when required, restricted to 10 km/h due to the poor condition of the track. Financial losses and the prohibitive cost of repairs meant that closure of the line past the limeworks came on 31 July 1959; despite local protests to keep the line open, the final train departed Ngapara behind AB 783. This class and the A were the mainstay of motive power on the branch for its final 25 years. The remainder of the branch, known from August 1959 as Taylor's Siding after the business it served, Taylor's Limeworks, continued to provide traffic until 1997, when the siding closed. The track was lifted in 1999.