Did N.Z.’s first train run to Ferrymead ... or to Dun Mountain?

Press, 30 June 1983, Page 17

Did N.Z.’s first train run to Ferrymead ... or to Dun Mountain?

By

ROY SINCLAIR

The Christchurch to Ferrymead railway, opened almost 120 years ago, on December 1, 1863, has traditionally been regarded as New Zealand’s first railway. Indeed, Ferrymead was the genesis of the country’s railway system. In recent years, however, Ferrymead’s claim has been challenged by some Nelsonians. They say that their Dun Mountain railway was opened on February 3, 1862, nearly two years before the first steam train left Christchurch for Ferrymead.

In Christchurch, the Dun Mountain railway has been dismissed as no more than a tramway where waggons (if they deserved the name) were hauled by horses. In fact, Nelson’s claim is based on the Dun Mountain Railway Act, 1861, which stated that Dun Mountain was a railway, not a tramway. Furthermore, Nelson people argue, in England at that time there were some notable small railways that used horses to haul railway vehicles.

The Dun Mountain Railway Act was the second railway bill to pass through the House of Representatives. The first was the Lyttelton and Christchurch Railway Act, 1860, which enabled trial drifts to be started in the Port Hills at Lyttelton. The argument could continue, but before any conclusions are drawn it is worth considering for what purpose the Dun Mountain railway (or tramway) was built and why Nelson, the only major New Zealand centre that does not have a railway today, insists that it had the first.

The Dun Mountain enterprise originated in 1852 when three men, chasing stray goats and cattle, found copper ore in the Matai Stream near the town of Nelson. A sample was given to Mr Travers, a notable Nelson explorer and solicitor, who traced its source to the 3700 ft (1128 m Dun Mountain near the outskirts of the town.

Travers and two companions, Wrey and Wells, formed an association for mining the copper ore. They obtained a lease on the land, conducted further geological surveys, and Wrey went to England to form the Dun Mountain Mining Company, Ltd, in 1857. In the same year the company sent its engineer, Thomas Hacket, to Nelson. Hacket did not consider that copper ore existed in sufficient quantities but he found that

Dun Mountain contained large deposits of chrome ore. He recommended that it should be mined. Compounds from chrome ore were used extensively in various dyeing processes in the Lancashire cotton mills.

The first consignments of chrome ore were drawn by bullocks from the Dun Mountain mine to Nelson’s port, a distance of almost 22.5 km. The cost was more than £6 a ton, which was then considered expensive. It was obvious that a more efficient transport

method was needed. Hacket suggested a tramway. The problem was that the Dun Mountain mine was 2800 ft (855 m above sea level. A very steep incline would have to be constructed to reach that height in less than 32km. Hacket thought the best plan would be to build two tracks at different levels and to join them by a chute hundreds of feet high. Materials for a railway arrived in Nelson from London on January 12,1858. The consignment, undoubtedly the first railway equipment to arrive in New Zealand, consisted of rails, sleepers, and one waggon. In June, 1858, a second shipment of railway materials arrived. It seems that Nelsonians have always had more than their share of problems as far as railways are concerned. In the case of Dun Mountain, a railway or tramway could not be built until the company obtained the consent of the Nelson Provincial Council. It had been proposed to build a line through the Matai Valley as an alternative to Hacket’s chute. When an act authorising the construction was passed on May 21, 1858, no definite plans had been made and the act was abandoned.

Nothing of importance happened for almost two years. Then, early in 1860, Racket’s chute idea was revived and it was thought that the construction would start immediately. One advantage of Racket’s scheme was that only 16km of line would have to be laid. The Matai Valley route would have been 28km.

In July, 1860, the situation changed when the company’s new engineer, Mr W. T. Doyne, and his associate, G. C. Fitzgibbon, arrived in Nelson. These two Irishmen

were competent engineers who had already been involved in railway construction in a number of countries, including England, America, Germany and India. Doyne surveyed a new route to Dun Mountain which avoided all former proposals, including Hacket’s mountainside chute. It went up the Brook Street valley and over Cummins Spur and the Wairoa Saddle.

An attempt to obtain an Act of the General Assembly, which would have permitted the work to start, was unsuccessful. The Select Committee of the House of Representatives decided the plans were incomplete. Undeterred, Doyne made a start without the necessary Parliamentary approval and by July, 1861, more than 150 men were employed on the construction. High up on Dun Mountain a considerable amount of ore was ready to be transported to the port. The completion of the line was a matter or urgency. Contracts were let for formation work, and tracklaying followed at a rate of half a mile a week. The paysheets of the time reveal that workers were paid between 8 and 10 shillings a day which was as much as engine drivers and guards on the N.Z.R. received 20 years later.

In the meantime the House of Representatives had caught up with progress and the Dun Mountain Railway Act was passed on August 17, 1861. The company was authorised to construct a single or double track railway between the port and the Dun Mountain mine. The act allowed the company to use locomotives, providing they were not employed within the Nelson city. This provision was somewhat ludicrous because the city area was the only part of the line where locomotives could have been used. The engineers considered that the incline was too steep. When it was completed, the 915 mm gauge line was 21.5 km in length and its total cost had been £ 2000 a mile. There was no doubt that the project had been skilfully engineered.

The official opening was held on February 3, 1862, which happened to be the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Nelson province. The infant city celebrated the event with considerable pomp and circumstance. The first train, consisting of eight waggons carrying 16 tons of ore, the Nelson Brass Band, and several passengers, left the company’s Brook Street depot at noon and ran to the port. After the ore had been discharged the celebrations continued in the Masonic Hall.

From its outset, the Dun Mountain line was worked by horses. Two horses could haul 1% tons of empty waggons up to the mine at 3.2 km/h. The full waggons descended by gravity under the control of a brakeman. Owing to the steep grade, and numerous sharp curves, speed had to be regulated between 6.5 and 9.7 km/h. In this way 900 tons of ore could be carried to the port in a good month. More than 3910 tons were transported in the first year. The Dun Mountain Railway Act required that the company ran a passenger service. To fulfil this obligation a 915 mm gauge fourwheeled “railway carriage” was bought from Sydney. On the ship’s manifest the carriage was listed as an “omnibus.” While it ran in Nelson it was generally known as the Port Bus. The horse-drawn passenger carriage which started

running between the city and the port in May, 1862 was really a tram. Thus Nelson was the first New Zealand town to have a tram service.

When the Dun Mountain line was opened, the future for the mining company looked very prosperous, but early in 1883 work at the mine ceased. The sudden turn of events was indirectly caused by the American Civil War. A blockade of the Confederacy’s cotton ports had stopped the supply of cotton to the Lancashire mills. Thousands of mill workers were without work and the demand for chrome ore fell.

The Dun Mountain line continued to operate for a short time, carrying lime and wood. During 1864 most of the employees left to join a new gold rush near Nelson and in 1866 the line was closed.

By this time the company’s engineer, Fitzgibbon, had gone to Australia as engineer-in-chief and commissioner to the Queensland Government Railways. Doyne worked on the early railways in Canterbury and then went to Tasmania where the Launceston and Deloraine railway was being built.

The Dun Mountain Mining Company was wound up in 1872 and the assets were sold for £4750 to a private person for resale. Some of the rails were eventually sold to the General Government and were used in the building of the Picton-to-Blenheim railway. Nelson’s first venture into railways had come to an end. The Port Bus continued to rumble through the city streets until 1901. By then, the company’s old tracks had worn out and Nelson, the first New Zealand city to have a tram service, became the first city to dispense with trams.

Nelson did have more ventures into railways. For many years a railway ran to Glenhope. It was isolated from the rest of the N.Z.R. system and finally closed in 1955 as the province’s roads improved. Then, in the 19605, a Labour government began to build a railway that would have joined Nelson and Blenheim, but a change of government following a General Election brought that project to an end. Was Dun Mountain really a railway? Or should it be dismissed as a tramway? The fact that the Dun Mountain Act in 1861 stated that the line was a railway is not

necessarily relevant. Whether Dun Mountain was a railway or not depends on the definition of a “railway.” The editor of the “Guinness Book of Rail Facts and Feats” was consulted. He defines a railway “. . . as a track carrying vehicles guided by flanged wheels.” The first railway in England was built by Ralph Allen in 1731 to carry stone from quarries in Prior Park down to Bath.

Like Dun Mountain, Allen’s railway was powered by horses and gravity. The early steam locomotives were built to run on existing

railways, therefore the type of motive power used has nothing to do with the definition of a railway. A “tramway” is simply a term to describe a light railway, mineral railway, or street railway. A tramway is in fact another term for a railway, providing the vehicles have flanged wheels. Therefore it must be agreed that the Dun Mountain line, opened on February 3, 1863, was New Zealand’s first railway. It must also be considered that the Dun Mountain railway was intended to be a permanent structure and had it continued, locomotives and more

sophisticated rolling stock would have run on it.

Ferrymead has the distinction of being New Zealand’s first steam railway and it was on this railway that the first N.Z.R. wheels turned.

Today, both cities remember their first railways. Ferrymead is a transport museum which promises to become the best of its kind in New Zealand. Dun Mountain was almost forgotten but more recently about 9km of the original railway formation became part of the Walkway system, enjoyed by hundreds of visitors to Nelson each year.