Welcome aboard the Foxton-Palmerston tram service to Palmerston! Last stop Rangitane, next stop Karere.
This cache is a little far from the station, due to another cache nearby, Taxi to the Moon. The station itself is just to the Foxton side of the intersection, about 100m up the road from this cache.
The dense bush that covered much of this area thins out here, making the area easily adapted for farming and indeed, by 1878 there were already numerous settlements here, including some Māori who had bought land back from the government and were farming it. Prinicpal amongst these was a small community called Jackeytown, just 1km up Jackeytown Road.
The road from Jackeytown to Tiakitahuna Station was metalled, but from the railway station to Longburn it was muddy, up to a horse's knees! The flooding between Longburn and Bainesse was so bad that every fifth railway sleeper here was staked.
The name Jackeytown is simply a bad transliteration of the local Māori name for the area, Tiakitahuna. Like Half Crown (Nga Whakarau, see Manawatu Rail: Rangitane, the previous station in the line), the settlers simply chose a name that they felt was easier to say.
Improvements to the road and the need for drainage means that there is no longer any evidence of the flat space that was used for the station and its goods loop (a siding joined at both ends).
Tiakitahuna Station, 1955
References:
Cassells, K.R.: "The Foxton and Wanganui Railway", published by the New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society, 1984.
Wanganui Herald, 10 September 1878.
Wairarapa Daily Times, 29 April 1904.