Early History
The original line was built to the Canterbury Provincial Railways broad gauge of 5 ft 3 in (1,600 mm) to suit rolling stock imported from the Melbourne and Essendon Railway Company in the Australian state of Victoria. It serviced ships which docked at the Ferrymead wharf. Construction of the tunnel to the port of Lyttelton was in progress: when this was finished in 1867, the line to Ferrymead became a branch and thereafter carried little traffic. After 27 July 1868, the line was used as a siding, by which time the station buildings had been relocated to Christchurch and Heathcote station. It was the first railway in New Zealand to be both opened and closed.
The Museum of Science and Industry, as it was then called, began in Christchurch in the early 1960s when a group of like-minded individuals banded together to set up a pilot project at Garvins Road in Hornby. At that time the Canterbury Branch of the NZRLS applied to the New Zealand Railways Department to lease part of the old Southbridge Branch at Prebbleton. When this was turned down, Ferrymead became a serious possibility. The Museum of Science and Industry and the Canterbury Branch decided that the Ferrymead site was ideal. The centenary of the original line was commemorated in 1963 and the beginnings of the present Ferrymead Railway date to November 1964.
Read more about this topic: Ferrymead Railway
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