In 1950 the station was moved almost a kilometre north, away from the sawmill,[6][7] at a cost of £13,405.[8] In that year it had 23,636 passengers, 4 staff and railed 148,093 board feet (349.46 m3) of timber and 28,633 sheep and pigs, earning £3,256 from passengers and £85,473 from freight.[9]
Tramway
A tramway was built into the bush to the east by Ellis and Burnand, initially with 11 mi (18 km) in 1903,[10] and extended further in 1904.[11] By 1909 it was over 14 mi (23 km), which had cost an average of over £1,000 per mile.[12] At 15 mi (24 km) it was slightly longer in 1922.[13] and by 1939 there were over 26 mi (42 km) of tramway[14] and 58 km (36 mi) when trucks took over in the 1950s.[5]
Gradients were up to 1 in 15, requiring the use of geared Climax locos from 1905,[15] which replaced horses[16] on wooden rails.[5] It also linked the station to the coal mines at Maniaiti / Benneydale.[6] The 1904 Climax is now in the Tokomaru Steam Engine Museum,[17] after ending service in 1954 and being briefly joined by another E & B Climax from their Manunui tramway.[18]
Coal from the Mangapehi mine used the line between 1936 and 1952.[5]
Gallery
Mangapehi railway station and Ellis and Burnand sawmill before 1930
"Climax" locomotive at Mangapehi, in 1920 on Ellis & Burnand tramway.
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