Tapanui Branch - Operation

Operation

In the early days, a mixed train operated from Edievale daily. These mixed trains connected with mainline expresses and local Invercargill-Clinton services at the junction in Waipahi. The line was indispensable before the expansion of decent road networks, but as improvements came in road transport in the 20th century, traffic began to decline. The Great Depression did not help the line's fortunes, with revenue dropping as fast as expenditure was rising in 1930. To save money, passenger services on the line were cancelled and replaced by buses, thus making the mixed trains goods-only, and the Edievale locomotive depot closed on 1 January 1934. The freight service was run when required, operating regularly on weekdays for many years, but it continued to lose money. The under-utilised section from Heriot to Edievale was closed on 1 January 1968 as it only saw 4,000 tonnes of traffic a year, but enough traffic existed to justify the existence of the rest of the line for a few more years, with tonnages varying between 30,000 and 60,000 tonnes in the 1970s. The freight carried at this time was mainly from the State Forest's Conical Hill Sawmill located nine kilometres up the line, and phosphate from the Southland Co-op Phosphate Co.'s works near Bluff to West Otago Transport in Heriot. In March 1969, trains were re-organised to operate from Gore, and the aged A class steam locomotives that typically ran trains on the branch were replaced by DJ class diesel-electric engines (steam locomotive power fully disappeared from New Zealand's railway system by the end of 1971).

Catastrophe hit the line in mid-October 1978. Extremely severe flooding along the Pomahaka River demolished bridges and washed out the trackage in many places, and costly repairs would not have been economic. Formal closure was confirmed two months later in December.

Before its closure in 1962, the Waikaka Branch ran in a valley parallel to that occupied by the Tapanui Branch, and trivia associated with operation of the lines is that locomotive crews in one valley claimed they were sometimes able to see smoke from a steam engine operating in the other valley.