The Dun Mountain Railway was a privately owned and operated 3 ft (914 mm) gauge, 21½ km long horse-drawn tramway from chromite mines in the vicinity of Duppa Lode on the eastern slopes of Wooded Peak to Nelson port in the Tasman District of New Zealand's South Island. It operated from 3 February 1862 to 30 May 1901, with the last mineral traffic on the incline section operated in January 1866.
This line was the first “railway” to be opened and operated in New Zealand, preceding the first public railway and the first railway to be operated by steam trains, the line between Ferrymead and Christchurch, which opened on 1 December 1863. The city of Nelson had the first city tramway to both open and close in New Zealand.
Famous quotes containing the words mountain and/or railway:
“The broken ridge of the hills
was the line of a lover’s shoulder,
his arm-turn, the path to the hills,
the sudden leap and swift thunder
of mountain boulders, his laugh.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)