History
This railway line was completed at the turn of the 20th century, and provided a link between Central Otago and Dunedin until closure in 1990. The first 64 km from the junction with the Main South Line in Wingatui remain operational; the initial 4 km form ONTRACK's Taieri Industrial Siding and the remaining 60 km through the Taieri Gorge to Middlemarch is operated by the Taieri Gorge Railway as a tourist attraction. The New Zealand Department of Conservation recognised that the remainder of the route to Clyde had potential as a recreational facility, and bought the formation after the rails and sleepers had been salvaged.
Since, the trail has come to be recognised as an important feature of the region, highlighted for example by strong interest from numerous groups in a 2011 workshop, where 120 people attended to discuss the further future of the trail, and how to encourage users to stay in the area for longer.
The success of the rail trail played an important role in ensuring the New Zealand Cycle Trail project succeeded in gaining funding, and was cited as an example of the kind of infrastructure the project is to provide by New Zealand's Prime Minister John Key.
Read more about this topic: Otago Central Rail Trail
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“The principal office of history I take to be this: to prevent virtuous actions from being forgotten, and that evil words and deeds should fear an infamous reputation with posterity.”
—Tacitus (c. 55–c. 120)
“What has history to do with me? Mine is the first and only world! I want to report how I find the world. What others have told me about the world is a very small and incidental part of my experience. I have to judge the world, to measure things.”
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951)
“They are a sort of post-house,where the Fates
Change horses, making history change its tune,
Then spur away o’er empires and o’er states,
Leaving at last not much besides chronology,
Excepting the post-obits of theology.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)