One of a series of simple, easy to find, caches at railway stations in and around Tasman.
Welcome aboard the New Zealand Railways service to Gowan Bridge! Last stop Appleby, next stop Wairoa.
The original settlers here were German whose voyage to New Zealand was sponsored by Count Von Rantzau. In appreciation, early farmer Carl Kelling gave his homestead the name Ranzau - the "t" was left out at the Count's request. This became the name for the entire village until it was renamed after Jane Hope, another early settler.
Hope Station started life as, for want of a better phrase, as just another community station. This section of land, from Stoke to Foxhill, was so flat and easy that there are little population centres all along the river. As a result this railway had one of the densest stations per kilometre of any railway outside of a highly urban environment. However the communities were small and generated little income for the rail line. By the late 1940's maintenance was reduced to bare minimums. In the case of Hope, however, it's busiest period was still to come, when the Valette Timber Company built a sawmill here. A new goods shed was built, the shelter shed was repainted. They even had their own private siding built.
The number of stations on this line was both a boon and a source of annoyance to the railway's patrons. In 1939 the train from Belgrove to Nelson was timetabled at eighty-five minutes, an average speed of twenty-four kilometres per hour. But a Wf engine is not slow. The problem was not just stopping at ten stations to pick up passengers, but all the shunting required to pick up wagons. Twelve stations, if there was pickups at the freezing works and kids to drop off at Hampden Street. This makes for an average of 3km between stops! This problem, that most of the trains are mixed - passenger and goods - and the consequent "delays" for the passengers to collect or drop off wagons, was one of the reasons for the demise of the railway when private cars became affordable. But more on that later...
The station building was in the paddock beside the cache there, and the sawmill is still here, across the road.
Hope Station, 1949.
References:
Voller, L: "Rails to Nowhere: The History of the Nelson Railway", published by the Nikau Press 1991
O'Donnell, B: "When Nelson had a Railway", published by the Schematics 2005
Scoble, J: "Names and Opening and Closing Dates of Railway Stations", published by the Rail Heritage Trust of New Zealand, 2010.