Celebrating 150 years of steam
The discovery of goodquality coking coal in the swamp and bush area that is now Kawakawa in 1864 was a massive step forward for Northland, although no one at that time could possibly have foreseen the huge impact the discovery would have.
Good-quality coal was ‘black gold’ to the settlers, but only if it could be exported. So by 1868 a wooden tramway with a 4ft, 81⁄2 inch gauge was built, with horses to haul the coal to what is now known as Derrick Landing, where it was loaded into barges and taken to the ‘loading ground, originally known as Newport, now the port of Opua.
Horses and the wooden tramway line were replaced on January 28, 1871, by the first steam engine to run in the North Island. Puffing Billy was an Alexander Chaplin and Co engine built in Glasgow and shipped to New Zealand specifically to haul the Kawakawa coal.
Historic day
Although there had been an excursion in 1868 whereby 90 people travelled in coal wagons from Taumarere to Kawakawa to view the mines, the really historic day was December 4, 1871, when this little steam engine was the first train in the North Island to carry passengers in a carriage. It was a very small carriage that could take only 12 people, but it was another momentous day for the region.
Work continued on extending the railway line to Opua, including the construction of the longest curved wooden bridge in the Southern Hemisphere, a hand-dug 80m tunnel, and extensive stretches of built-up embankments through coastal swamp.
Finally the railway line to Opua was completed on April 7, 1884, marking the start of another economic boom for the Mid North, with Opua becoming one of the busiest export ports in the country, holding records for the fastest loading of freight in New Zealand.
During the 1970s and ’80s the railway line, now registered as a historic site, carried an average
The first engine, Puffing Billy, in 1874.
of 30,000 passengers per annum, with a record 50,000 in 1997.
Long Bridge was closed in 2000 as unsafe, and when the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway Trust was incorporated in 2003
it inherited a railway in a state of total disrepair, but the trust and its many volunteers inaugurated another massive period of development. Nearly $5 million has been raised
Adam Girven, the first named Kawakawa train driver, and his wife Harriet.
through grants, fundraising and operational activities, all invested back into infrastructure, rolling stock and buildings at Kawakawa and Taumarere.
As a result, the trust is now poised for another huge step forward that will have a very significant impact on Northland.
But 1868 was the start of this