If you are only interested in the smiley then that is fine and you can go straight to the cache. However, please be aware that without the context of the ghost railway story the cache will appear to be at an uninspiring and unremarkable location. If the story of the ghost line interests you then please take the time to visit the observation points and follow the course of the long forgotten railway.
As remarked in another Ghost Railway cache, redundant rail engineering can be remarkably long-lived if it is simply left alone. Unfortunately remnants of the Walton Park line have been almost totally destroyed by earthworks to build motorways and housing subdivisions. What little that remains is all close to where the line left the South Island Main Trunk.
At the first observation point (co-ords below) you will be able to catch sight of the underpass where the line travelled under the Green Island motorway as it left the Main Trunk Line at the Green Island railway station. The observation point is on Miller Park and from it you need to look SE. Of course, when the original line was laid there was no motorway. The underpass was constructed when the motorway was built.
At the second observation point (co-ords below) you will find yourself standing on the footpath. Look NE between the gap in the trees and to the left of the Fletcher Reinforcing building and you will see the opposite side of the underpass. The line officially closed in 1957 but about 580 metres from the Green Island station was retained as a siding to service the tannery (now demolished) and flour mill. Trains shunting into these would have left the main line and travelled across the Main South Road level crossing before back-shunting into the siding that ran to the factories. That siding is visible now as a gravelled road into the Harraways factory. Complete closure of the line came in 1980.
From the underpass you can easily work out where the trackbed ran even though only the last 20 metres before the road (behind the white wooden fence) actually still exists in recognisable form. The line crossed the road on the crest of the hump (ever wondered why the road had a hump here? Now you know!) and ran close to what is now the Green Island Gallery. The trackbed continued running parallel with Shand Street along what is now a car park behind the gallery, a playground and a public car park. From the observation point travel along Shand Street. You will be able to trace the line of the trackbed for part of the way and then it just stops where new buildings have been constructed over it. That is the end of the physical evidence of the Walton Park Branch line. Everything else has been obliterated.
We know the line went round behind what is now the Memorial Park and old persons housing in Green Island and crossed Brighton Road in the vicinity of observation point three (co-ords below). It then ran across land on what is now sitting a well built-up embankment for the motorway and through swampy land behind what is now the Sunnyvale sports ground.
Assuming you have driven/cycled/walked from the third observation point to the fourth (co-ords noted below) you will have travelled through Sunnyvale and past the sportsground. The line ran along behind the ground. It is quite swampy in there but there is no mention of any difficulties with construction in any of the sources I have used.
At the fourth observation point a gate in the classic NZGR/NZR style stood near the road for many years, well into the 2000s, the only hint that a railway ever ran through here. It can only be hoped that it ended up being re-used somewhere rather than as firewood. Why the railway installed a gate here is a puzzle. No station stood here. In fact, the only “station” on the line was a shelter shed at Walton Park. To the best of the information I have seen, no passenger services ran on the Walton Park line so why a shelter shed was built is not known.
The line curved around here and ran towards Fairfield through a semi-cutting where the new housing now stands before emerging in Howorth Street in the vicinity of the fifth observation point (co-ords noted below). A 1922 map shows a siding leaving the line here and running into a brickworks.
It then ran through a cutting where the Fulton Hogan depot now stands. This cutting was home to a quarry (which possibly supplied the brickworks?) From the sixth observation point (co-ords noted below) you can get a good view of the cutting/quarry and see where the line would have emerged from it. This observation point cannot be driven to. It is on a walkway that can be accessed from the end of Bremner Street (which runs off of Howorth Road).
From here it all becomes messy. As you can see from observation point six there have been substantial earthworks to build the motorway. The 1922 map suggests that the line ran across to what is now another Fulton Hogan depot on the other side of the motorway and skirted around the hillside. Now go to the final cache at the co-ords given.
The railway almost certainly skirted around the hillside to the SW of the cache. Trains don’t like steep gradients and railways are engineered to keep gradients as gentle as possible. Bringing the line around the hill rather than over the top would have been the preferred option.
From here a 1922 map shows the line splitting into two and these are described as tramways rather than railways. “Tramway” suggests these lines were lightly constructed and it is possible that NZGR locomotives didn’t run onto these lines. Lighter shunting tractors belonging to the mines may have pulled wagons of coal down to the branch line. Horses may even have been used. If anyone has information about this I would be very pleased to receive it. The tramways would have run up onto the side of Saddle Hill to the mines located there.
As you have probably guessed, it was these coal mines that were the whole reason for the line’s construction and operation. In their book Exploring New Zealand’s Ghost Railways Leitch and Scott are very dismissive of the Walton Park Branch Line, describing it as “...an industrial service siding rejoicing in the status of a branch line.” I think that is a bit unfair. When the line was constructed “coal was king”. It was the principal source of energy in the rapidly developing country. I believe one of the mines this line would eventually serve was actually the first coal mine to operate in New Zealand, which is surprising as when we think about pioneering coalmining in New Zealand we tend to immediately think of the West Coast. But that association alone tends to raise the status of the Walton Park Branch in my opinion.
The line beyond Walton Park was closed in 1944 and the line was completely closed in 1957, apart from the short section, now just a siding, that was retained to allow access to the flour mill and tannery.
Note: The CO has previously had a cache highlighting the Walton Park line. This was archived in 2008 and this new cache is completely different.
Warning: Final is located near a watercourse that appears to be quite deep. Take care.
Sources:
New Zealand Railway and Tramway Atlas, 4th edition, John Yonge, 1993
Exploring New Zealand's Ghost Railways, Leitch and Scott, 1995