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32-404: The Tāneatua Branch is a 25-kilometre (16 mi) long branch railway line in the Bay of Plenty , New Zealand, running from Hawkens Junction, west of Edgecumbe , to Tāneatua . From 2 September 1928 to 1978 the line was part of the East Coast Main Trunk (ECMT) line from Hamilton. The original intention was for the ECMT to connect to Gisborne via Paeroa, Tauranga, Opotiki and through

64-482: A main line . A very short branch line may be called 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

96-510: 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

128-464: 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

160-677: A number of railway companies, with sidings and branches operated by private companies or single railway companies. Railway points (UK) or switches (US) are usually set in the direction of the main line by default. Failure to do so has been a factor in several fatal railway accidents , for example the Buttevant Rail Disaster in Ireland, and the Graniteville train crash in the US. This rail-transport related article

192-823: 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

224-531: 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

256-466: 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

288-567: 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

320-532: 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

352-753: 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

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384-1048: 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

416-749: The Moutohora Branch line, which closed in 1959. NZR proposed extending the branch to Whakatane from the Whakatane West railway station to a new terminus across the Whakatāne River . The proposal never eventuated. A passenger service was provided on the line with the Taneatua Express from Auckland between 1928 and 1959. In 1959 railcars replaced this service, but they only operated between Auckland and Te Puke, due to negligible passenger traffic between Te Puke and Tāneatua. With

448-788: 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

480-704: 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

512-653: The Waioeka Gorge , connecting with the Moutohora Branch to Gisborne ; creating a link from the isolated Gisborne section line to Auckland via the Bay of Plenty. This line across the Rangitaiki Plains follows an inland or southerly route to avoid areas which were swampy at the time of construction, therefore bypassing Whakatāne , the largest town in the area. The intention was for the line to be extended from Tāneatua to Opotiki, then onwards east to connect with

544-417: The list of New Zealand railway lines . Main line (railway) For capacity reasons, main lines in many countries have at least a double track and often contain multiple parallel tracks. Main line tracks are typically operated at higher speeds than branch lines and are generally built and maintained to a higher standard than yards and branch lines. Main lines may also be operated under shared access by

576-624: The Great Depression, the Second World War and the greater availability of road vehicles in the period after the war, the proposal was dropped and Tāneatua remained the eastern terminus of the railway line in the Bay of Plenty. Gisborne was subsequently linked to the south with Wellington by way of Napier and Palmerston North with the Palmerston North – Gisborne Line in 1942. The isolated Gisborne Section line became

608-695: 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

640-623: 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

672-469: 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

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704-726: The distance from Auckland to towns on the ECMT by nearly 80 km (50 mi). Work was stopped in July 1928 when the Government of the day transferred the construction workers to the Rotorua-Taupo line which it had just approved the construction of. As late as 1939 £45,000 was provided for extension from Taneatua to Opotiki. Various routes were investigated and surveyed to link the difficult section between Tāneatua and Moutohora, but all were found to be difficult and expensive. Following

736-434: The entire Tāneatua Branch line. In 2015 a rail cart operation, Awakeri Rail Adventures, was established on the section of the line from Awakeri eastward to Rewatu Road. Some of the track further east was removed in 2017. Tūhoe Charitable Trust built an eco-village on the former Tāneatua railway yard Branch railway A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually

768-569: 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

800-646: The isolated Gisborne Section line from Gisborne. Some construction work was carried out beyond Tāneatua towards Opotiki in 1928, and an opening ceremony was held for the new line (the ECMT) in Tauranga on 28 March 1928. When the Minister of Public Works Bob Semple turned the first sod for building the Paeroa–Pokeno Line on 28 January 1938, it was said that the proposed 47 km (29 mi) line would shorten

832-546: 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

864-451: The line once it was completed, but despite several attempts to reach an agreement between the two parties, the line remained in WBM ownership. This line was privately operated by the mill until 1999 when the then-national rail operator Tranz Rail took over the operation of the line. Tranz Rail discontinued operating the line in 2001. The line was closed in 2003, together with the mothballing of

896-683: The opening of the Kaimai tunnel in 1978, the terminus of the East Coast Main Trunk line was changed to Kawerau and the section of line between Hawkens Junction and Tāneatua became the Tāneatua Branch line. The Whakatane Board Mills Line , a private line, was built and operated by the Whakatane Board Mills (WBM) from Awakeri to their mill in 1937 to serve their large operation. It was proposed that NZR would take over

928-572: 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

960-507: 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

992-504: 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

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1024-502: 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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