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From issue: Winter 2003

Stations on the Move

by Penelope Carroll

A self-professed lover of old railway stations and trains who still waves to train drivers, finds that unused stations can have other lives.

The old pre-WWI Mt Eden Railway Station, which was moved to a Mt Albert site in 1994 and converted to a private home. Picture: Julia Thorne

Where have all the stations gone? Well, to rephrase Pete Seeger's 1960s folk hit, they have not gone to graveyards, every one. In fact, dozens of New Zealand railway stations deemed surplus to requirements through the 1980s and '90s have undergone major transformations. They have become breweries, bed and breakfasts, cafés, community meeting rooms, educational facilities, information centres, offices, private houses, retail outlets, student accommodation and art centres.

They range from the grand - Dunedin Railway Station, once the busiest in the country - to tiny four-by-two-metre Ruru Station deep in the bush near Lake Brunner on the West Coast. Both are Category I historic places and both have been refurbished, Ruru by an enthusiastic local group and Dunedin by the Dunedin City Council.

Doug Small outside the Thames Station Photo: Peter James Quinn,

The council bought the century-old monument of Edwardian architecture with its domed tower, frieze of cherubs below the balcony, stained-glass windows and mosaic floor in 1991. Designed by George Troup, chief draughtsman and then chief architect for New Zealand Railways from 1894-1925, it now houses an arts centre, a café, a Sports Hall of Fame and offices for the Taieri Gorge Railway.

The $5 million-plus Dunedin Railway Station refurbishment is coming to an end with the cleaning, restoration and repair of the 124- metre-long central section of the station's superb ornate steel-and-glass platform canopy. It still also functions as a station. So, to some extent, do two other Category I stations designed by Troup; Lower Hutt (built in 1905), now a brewery, bar and bistro complex, and Greymouth (dates from 1895), now a mix of information centre and retail.

Euan McQueen outside Wellington Railway Station. Photo: Justine Lord

Auckland Railway Station, built in ornate beaux-arts style in 1928- 1930, is another grand monument to rail and state-run transport. It was sold to a private developer during the privatisation of the rail network in the '90s, converted to student accommodation and renamed the Railway Campus.

Wellington Railway Station could become part of Victoria University's downtown commerce, law and government campus. Negotiations over the use of the upper floors of the 66-year-old station have been taking place between the university and Tranz Rail. Like Ruru, Dunedin, Lower Hutt, Greymouth and five other railway stations, Auckland and Wellington have Category I status.

A further 25 railway stations are registered as Category II. Some of these have been bought by local councils. Blenheim, last of the ornate wooden stations designed by Troup, is now the information centre for the community; 110-year-old Shannon, the last remaining station of the Wellington and Manawatu Railway Company, is also an information centre and museum; and 80-year-old Otorohanga station is being restored with grants from the Lotteries Grants Board and Trust Waikato.

Most stations are being transformed and maintained through committed community efforts. The Kaiapoi Railway Station, which sat empty and forlorn beside the Main Trunk for a decade, was last year moved by the Kaiapoi Railway Station Restoration Trust to the Kaiapoi River bank, where it is now the town's information centre. In Dannevirke, the Lions club is upgrading the distinctive decorative ironwork canopy of the town's station.
Dannevirke, Kaiapoi, Oamaru, Ormondville, Otaki, Remuera, Shannon, Thames and Waihi - all stations registered as Category II historic places - owe their revival to local community groups. Ormondville, beautifully restored, is a bed and breakfast; Otaki is leased by a rare-book dealer and philatelist; Thames is the administrative base for Ngati Maru ki Hauraki.

Thames Station, opened in 1898, was originally the northern (Grahamstown) station for the town. As the town developed to the south, the totara-and-kauri building with its six fireplaces was cut in half and shifted south to its present site. That was 1929. The station closed to passengers in 1951, then altogether in 1991. Ngati Maru ki Hauraki bought it and gained a long-term lease on the surrounding 7.7 hectares of land in 1998.

"We've put on a new roof, repiled it, repainted the outside and stripped the paint on the inside. That was a major job," administration manager Doug Small said.

Nine people work out of the building, organising community and educational programmes and running the runanga. "It may not be efficient like a modern-style office, but it is roomy and solid - everything the Railways built was solid - and it has a good atmosphere."

Those stations have been officially granted historical significance.

What about the many other old stations that have been deemed surplus to requirements, what has happened to them?

Some have simply been demolished; others bought by private individuals and removed. The signal box from Swanson became a bach at Anawhata; the Mt Eden Railway Station is now a private family home in Mt Albert (beside a railway embankment); the Waitakere Station was shifted to the Museum of Transport and Technology in Western Springs.

Then there are those that have been saved and transformed by dedicated community groups. Swanson community members rescued the Avondale station, built in 1879, closed in 1986 and due for demolition in 1993.

Meredith Youngson, secretary of the Swanson Railway Trust, said that after a public meeting in 1993, the community decided to try and save the building.

"It was covered in graffiti and every door and window was smashed. But it was still a beautiful building."

Hundreds of people became involved in raising money to relocate and restore the building, and at one stage Youngson was working on the project fulltime. What they thought would take six months stretched out to seven years. The community room, used regularly for meetings and classes, opened in 1998; the café in December 2000. The café has now made the project self-financing.

The Papatoetoe Railway Station Preservation Trust, formed after a public meeting in 1998, restored the local station (parts of the building dated back to 1875), which was facing demolition, and moved it to its new site a few hundred metres away, still on the Main Trunk, and the site of the original station master's house.

Before its latest move, the chimneys and fireplaces had to be dismantled and paint stripped from the bricks and the cast concrete fireplaces. Completely restored, the station now operates as a community building available for classes, gatherings and meetings - all made possible by committed community effort and private donations, along with funding from the Lotteries Grants Board, Manukau City Council, Papatoetoe Licensing Trust and Shooters Snooker and Pool and the Rail Heritage Trust.

Established in 1991, the Rail Heritage Trust works alongside the Historic Places Trust, Tranz Rail and local community groups and owners to help to preserve, protect and restore the finest examples of New Zealand's rail heritage - and ensure its future use is "in a manner consistent with their historic status, for example as museums, centres for local activities or for other community purposes". This inclides helping local community groups wanting to save a station liaise with Tranz Rail, advising them on project planning and implementation and helping with funding.

But prior to the formation of the Rail Heritage Trust, many of New Zealand's old railway buildings were demolished between the 1950s and 1980s by New Zealand Rail unwilling to put money into restoring the buildings on site. In the 1980s, the Historic Places Trust helped fund father-and-son team Jack and Paul Mahoney to carry out a national study of railway stations. It's a family passion for the Mahoneys. The late Jack Mahoney wrote a book, Down at the Station, and his father John used to build railway stations.

Paul Mahoney says that in the 1950s, there were 1350 railway station buildings. Now there are about 40 old wooden station buildings left on site.

What's behind the passion and drive of so many people to resurrect old decaying railway stations? Euan McQueen, chairman of the Rail Heritage Trust Board, puts it down partly to memories of all those adventures, family holidays and outings that began and ended in railway stations until the car became king in the late '60s.

"In the 1950s, there were six trains from Wellington to Auckland on Christmas Eve. It wasn't just that people didn't have cars; they got hot on the hills and broke down."

Railway stations and trains have also played a central role in much of the literature we grew up with, the movies we have seen.

Said McQueen: "There's an enormous nostalgia and romanticism about railways, and a certain sense of mystery, the way the rails head off into the distance."

Penelope Carroll is an Auckland writer.