33-775: The Blackball Branch was a branch line railway of New Zealand 's national rail network on the West Coast of the South Island and was operational from the 1900s to 1966. It included the Roa Branch , also known as the Roa Incline . Roa was sometimes known as Paparoa. The Blackball Coal Company's mine near Blackball was on the opposite side of the Grey River to the Stillwater - Westport Line , and in
66-965: A Fell centre rail for braking due to grades as steep as 1 in 25. This was not a full incline like its North Island counterpart, the Rimutaka Incline . During 1909, the Public Works Department began carrying coal along the Blackball Branch, and in September that year, the State Mines Department began operating the Roa Incline. The Blackball Branch was not handed over to the New Zealand Railways Department and officially opened until 1 August 1910. The Roa Incline
99-428: A spur line . Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located on a main line. Branch lines may also connect two or more main lines. An industrial spur is a type of secondary track used by railroads to allow customers at a location to load and unload railcars without interfering with other railroad operations. Industrial spurs can vary greatly in length and railcar capacity depending on
132-510: A common sight along railroads in industrial and rural cities alike. As automobile and roadway technology improved throughout the early and mid-20th century, most low volume industry spurs were abandoned in favor of the greater flexibility and economic savings of trucking. Today, railroads remain the most economical way to ship large quantities of material, a fact that is reflected in industrial spurs. Most modern day spurs serve very large industries that require hundreds, if not thousands, of carloads
165-420: A continuous air brake were an important safety issue, leading to occasional runaways, although it is unclear whether any injury resulted from such situations. Falling production and a decrease in orders meant that the State Mines Department closed the Roa Incline on 25 July 1960. From July 1963, only one train was permitted to operate on the Blackball Branch at a time, though due to the low quantity of traffic it
198-464: A mainline, they tend to have lower maintenance and signaling (train control) standards. Before the rise of the long-distance trucking in the early 1930s, railroads were the primary means of transportation around the world. Industries of the era were commonly built along railroad lines specifically to allow for easy access to shipping. Short (under a mile, oftentimes only several hundred yards) industrial spurs with very small (under ten car) capacities were
231-492: A number of years, primarily for the mine workers, and these ceased in 1940. Before 1955 the engine depot in Blackball closed and trains operated from Greymouth, and in 1955 Blackball station burned down. Trains to Blackball were typically operated by B and W class steam locomotives , with W and W locomotives on the Roa Incline. Diesel locomotives were never used on the Blackball Branch. A significant impediment to
264-823: A section of the West Rail line . Discontinued services include the Sha Tau Kok Railway and the Wo Hop Shek Branch . A spur line to Siu Sai Wan has been proposed. Delhi On the Delhi Metro , the Blue Line has a Branch Line with 8 Stations, linking Yamuna Bank to Ghaziabad via Anand Vihar ISBT and terminating at Vaishali. The first section of the Branch opened on 8 January 2010 with Anand Vihar as its terminal with six stations. It
297-531: A subsidy for grain transport, and instead allowed railways to absorb branch line subsidies freely without making effort to improve the profitability of the lines. The term "grain-dependent branch lines" began being used as early as 1978 to refer to the special case of these branch lines in agricultural areas whose viability depended on the economics of grain transport. The Western Grain Transportation Act of 1983 addressed this case specifically, but
330-466: A year. There is an international branch line between Italy and Vatican: the 300-metre Vatican Railway , connecting from the Pisa-Rome railway mainline at Roma San Pietro railway station , to Vatican City station . Many British railway branch lines were closed as a result of the " Beeching cuts " in the 1960s, although some have been re-opened as heritage railways . The smallest branch line that
363-465: Is doubtful this policy ever had to be seriously enforced. By 1964, the line served just one active mine, operating on a limited basis. The Railways Department began to consider closure of the line, and when a flood on 21 February 1966 destroyed two spans of the Grey River bridge it was decided that repairs would not be economical, and the line was closed. Four spans of the old railway bridge over in
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#1732798483178396-567: Is still in operation in the UK is the Stourbridge Town Branch Line from Stourbridge Junction going to Stourbridge Town . Operating on a single track, the journey is 0.8 miles (1.3 kilometres) long and the train takes around two and a half minutes to complete its journey. In North America, little-used branch lines are often sold by large railroads to become new common carrier short-line railroads of their own. Throughout
429-532: The Bay of Plenty Region , lines were built inland to provide rail access to large logging operations. Today, many of the branch lines have been closed, including almost all of the general-purpose country lines. Those that remain serve ports or industries far from main lines such as coal mines, logging operations, large dairying factories, and steelworks . In Auckland and Wellington , two branch lines in each city exist solely for commuter passenger trains. For more, see
462-753: The Gladstone Branch in New Jersey; as well as the New Canaan Branch , Danbury Branch , and Waterbury Branch in Connecticut . The Long Island Rail Road also refers to its services as "branches". In Chile, there are a lot of branch lines on its main line, of only a few remain operational. Most only operating in turistic services (like the Antilhue-Valdivia branch line), others have been taken over by other railways (like
495-1048: The Grand Trunk , Canadian National , or Canadian Pacific ) which would acquire formerly independent short line railways for use as branch lines, with the short line often continuing to exist as a subsidiary. For example, when the Canadian Pacific acquired the Algoma Eastern Railway (a short line) in 1930, it soon after abandoned much of the Algoma Eastern mainline, but retained sections close to Algoma Eastern–Canadian Pacific junctions as short branch lines or spurs. The National Transportation Act of 1967 provided government subsidies for branch lines. Western railway development in Canada worked in concert with land settlement and cultivation, as pioneers were settled near railway lines, often on land
528-728: The North South Line between Jurong East and Choa Chu Kang stations was operated as a separate line, known as the Branch line . It was merged into the North–South Line with the opening of the Woodlands Extension in 1996. The future Jurong Region Line and Cross Island Line will also have branch lines. New Zealand once had a very extensive network of branch lines, especially in the South Island regions of Canterbury , Otago , and Southland . Many were built in
561-704: The South Tseung Kwan O Spur Line to LOHAS Park station , opened in 2009. Earlier, a spur line was built in 1985 on the East Rail line to serve Racecourse station , bypassing Fo Tan station . Also, the Tsim Sha Tsui Extension [ yue ] was built in 2004 on the East Rail line to serve East Tsim Sha Tsui station . However, after the Kowloon Southern Link was completed in 2009, this spur line turns into
594-425: The list of New Zealand railway lines . Track bed The track bed or trackbed is the groundwork onto which a railway track is laid. Trackbeds of disused railways are sometimes used for recreational paths or new light rail links. According to Network Rail , the trackbed is the layers of ballast and sub-ballast above a prepared subgrade /formation (see diagram). It is designed primarily to reduce
627-535: The Grey River bridge suffered from delays, a contractor for a trestle bridge further along the line went bankrupt, and torrential rain made working conditions hard and problematic. As construction slowly progressed, work on an incline from Blackball into the Paparoa Ranges was commenced by the Paparoa Coal Company. This line was ultimately taken over by the State Mines Department and involved
660-446: The Grey River stood until 2002 when they were dismantled. The bridge itself was kept in operation until 1968 as a road only bridge, and then several more years for pedestrians, until further flooding damage made it impractical to repair. Nearby, two towers of the cableway that preceded the railway can be seen amidst swampland near Ngahere. Another bridge remains in place across Ford Creek on the Roa Incline, still complete with pedestals for
693-695: The San Rosendo-Talcahuano branch line, which has been taken over by Biotrén and the Laja-Talcahuano train service) however, there is one branch line that still remains as fully operative. The Talca-Constitución branch line, which uses trains with bus motors. Two extensions to the MTR rapid transit network were built as branches of existing lines: the Lok Ma Chau Spur Line to Lok Ma Chau station , which opened in 2007; and
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#1732798483178726-623: The U.S. state of New Jersey . The line is a short branch of the Northeast Corridor Line , running from Princeton Junction northwest to Princeton with no intermediate stops. Also known as the "Dinky Line", at 2.9 mi (4.7 km) it is the shortest scheduled commuter rail line in the United States. The run takes 4 minutes, 47 seconds. Other than the Princeton Line, other surviving branch lines include
759-469: The United States and Canada, branch lines link smaller towns too distant from the main line to be served efficiently, or to serve a certain industrial site such as a power station either because of a location away from the main line or to reduce congestion. They were typically built to lower standards, using lighter rail and shallow roadbeds when compared to main lines. Much of Canada's branch line history relates to large rail transport conglomerates (such as
792-404: The centre rail. In the rugged terrain, some of the formation of the Blackball and Roa lines can be seen, though it is often not near roads and nature is steadily reclaiming the line. Few other remnants of the line exist. Branch line A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line . A very short branch line may be called
825-569: The first president of the Canadian National Railway , said that although most branch lines cannot pay for themselves, they are even essential to make main lines pay. In the United States, abandonment of unproductive branch lines was a byproduct of deregulation of the rail industry through the Staggers Act . The Princeton Branch is a commuter rail line and service owned and operated by New Jersey Transit (NJT) in
858-486: The late 19th century an aerial cableway was used to transport coal from the mine across the river to a railway station in Ngahere . This did not prove to be as efficient or desirable as a railway, so in 1901 a branch line across the Grey River from Ngahere to Blackball was approved. The Public Works Department began building the 5.5-kilometre (3.4 mi) line in 1902, but it was plagued with difficulties. Construction of
891-488: The late 19th century to open up inland regions for farming and other economic activities. The branches in the South Island regions were often general-purpose lines that carried predominantly agricultural traffic, but lines elsewhere were often built to serve a specific resource: on the West Coast , an extensive network of branch lines was built in rugged terrain to serve coal mines, while in the central North Island and
924-418: The operation of the line was the difficulty and cost of maintaining the 510-metre (1,680 ft) length road-rail bridge across the Grey River. Poor design and construction meant that the bridge was frequently damaged by flooding, requiring expensive repairs. This situation eventually led to the closure of the line when the cost of maintenance became too high. The hazards of working such a steep incline without
957-572: The railways had owned. However, by the mid-20th century, railways began neglecting lines in western agricultural regions. This was historically driven by factors such as the Crow Rate , which regulated the price railways could charge for shipping grain. Railways had little incentive to invest in rural Prairie branch lines, but were legally unable to abandon them under the National Transportation Act , which also did not provide
990-507: The requirements of the customer the spur is serving. In heavily industrialized areas, it is not uncommon for one industrial spur to have multiple sidings to several different customers. Typically, spurs are serviced by local trains responsible for collecting small numbers of railcars and delivering them to a larger yard, where these railcars are sorted and dispatched in larger trains with other cars destined to similar locations. Because industrial spurs generally have less capacity and traffic than
1023-504: Was further extended to Vaishali in 2011. The line is planned to be extended from Vaishali to Mohan Nagar via Sahibabad Station to link with the main line. The East West Line of the MRT system in Singapore has a two-station branch to Changi Airport . The first station, Expo , opened in 2001. It was extended to Changi Airport station the next year. From 1990 to 1996, the section of
Blackball Branch - Misplaced Pages Continue
1056-461: Was owned by the State Mines Department for its entire life. Coal production from the mines increased greatly when the railway opened, as it permitted much larger quantities of coal to be carried. Workings on the Roa Incline were spectacular; sometimes up to eight trains a day would run down the Incline, relying only on handbrakes to avoid a runaway. Passenger services were operated to Blackball for
1089-502: Was repealed in 1994 in the wake of the North American Free Trade Agreement and budget-balancing initiatives in favour of a one-time payout by the federal government directly to farmers, to arrange transport of grain themselves. From the mid-1970s to the late 2010s, more than 9,300 kilometres (5,800 mi) of Prairie branch lines were abandoned or had a discontinuance of service. David Blyth Hanna ,
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