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Beginning days of a railway: James Stewart and the Auckland to Drury railway
Anne Stewart Ball
Abstract: This article gives a brief history of the first Auckland to Drury railway line, 1862-1866, which was ultimately the origin of the Auckland end of the Main Trunk Line. It includes material on the Waihoihoi Coal Company’s tramway at Drury and the engineer James Stewart (1833-1914).
About the author: Anne Stewart Ball lives on the Coromandel Peninsula with her partner and two ginger cats which rule the household. She is currently researching and writing a biography of her great grandfather, James Stewart, the engineer featured in this article.
Anne began her working life at Ruakura Agricultural Research Centre and then moved into the field of adult education. She enjoys visiting places where the early railway engineers and surveyors worked (no tar-sealed roads in those days) and learning about our New Zealand engineering heritage. To contact Anne about this article, email her at twofish@clear.net.nz
Introduction
The Drury Coalfield
The Waihoihoi tramway
The Drury railway
The railway survey
Construction begins
A halt to construction
Writer’s comment
Those at the ‘rail face’
Acknowledgements
References
In 1858 a fire was lit in an open grate at the Shortland Street premises of Brown and Campbell using newly found Drury coal.[1] With the fire burning brightly, dreams and plans evolved. Drury coal was an exciting discovery and its possibilities were experimented with and speculated on – coal for steam power, to run steamers, and even a railway, gasworks and smiths’ works.
In 1859 the Government enlisted the expertise of visiting geologist, Dr. Ferdinand von Hochstetter, to examine and assess the new coalfield for its potential.[2]
From these small beginnings of people talking, planning and dreaming came firstly the Waihoihoi tramway. This was a wooden tramway running from the Waihoihoi Coal Company’s mine in the Drury Coalfields to the Manukau Harbour.
While the Waihoihoi tramway was under construction, the idea of a railway from Auckland to Drury, and perhaps even to the Waikato, was mooted. Some even talked about a railway from Auckland to Wellington.[3] From this talk came the survey plans for the Auckland to Drury Railway with a branch line to Onehunga.[4] This project was to evolve into what today is called the Auckland end of the Main Trunk line. However several decades passed from those early days of railway construction before the dream became reality and, in 1908, the main trunk line finally opened.
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