Proposed Waikato North-Head line to carry iron sands to Glenbrook Steel Mill

 

Towards a better future - Proposed Waikato North Head-Mission Bush Railway line

Introduction from Railways Department General Manager Trevor Hayward and what's next?

How did Railways respond to the Commission for the Environment?

How did Railways respond to the Commission for the Environment? What are the land compensation rights and procedures (for owners of land NZR wanted to acquire)?

Map of proposed route from Steel Mill past Glenbrook

Corner of Map and description of Construction and operations

Description of preferred route

Map to the sand bank and end of operations description

Under the Muldoon Government one of the Think Big projects was the Glenbrook Steel Mill expansion project. The mill was already a significant rail customer, receiving coal from Waikato to power and to provide carbon for steel production, sending steel coil production elsewhere in the country and for export on the Mission Bush Branch.  However the Railways Department (by this time of this leaflet the Railways Corporation) saw opportunity to bid for transporting iron sands from the Maioro Sand Mine.  This leaflet proposes a new branch line to carry the iron sands to the mill, with three trains a day.  This is the preferred rail route after two years of investigation by the Railways Department.  

Each train would consist of 29 bottom-discharge wagons, around 300 metres long (which is not extraordinary at all by international standards).

It is curious that this leaflet was produced, presumably to communicate to mostly farmers but also other local residents of the area about the proposal. The Railways Corporation clearly saw this as an opportunity to generate net revenues that were worth pursuing, although a railway with three trains a day (noting it would return empty) is not a particularly high density operation (it would appear to include no passing tracks as it was assumed only one train would be on this line at any one time).

Of course the Mission Bush Branch was itself opened for the steel mill, although most of it already existed for the Waiuku Branch (which was closed in 1967). This new line would use a small portion of the old Waiuku Branch (already part of the Glenbrook Vintage Railway).

Ultimately this line was never built, because NZ Steel chose to build a slurry pipeline which is 18km long instead of relying on the Railways Corporation.  This may have been because it would have full control over the infrastructure and it was likely to be less vulnerable to industrial action, and the priorities of the Railways Corporation.

What is unique about this leaflet is that it is perhaps the last example of a railways publication promoting a new, commercially driven, railway line in NZ history.  What remains odd is why there is a photo of the Northerner (former overnight express train Auckland-Wellington) on the cover? There was never any suggestion of passenger service on this proposed line, let alone the existing Mission Bush branch!