Ormondville Rail Preservation Group Inc.

• Background

• Progress

• Buildings on the move

• People

• The dark before the dawn

Everyone in Ormondville knew the railway. Day and night, train-sounds provided a backdrop to town life. Chuffing sounds – struggling up the steep hills; rumbling sounds – crossing the three big steel viaducts; wailing sounds – whistling warnings at the road crossings. Ormondville’s town clock was not the usual towering timepiece. It was the monotonous regularity of twenty-two trains passing through the town each day.

Background

When Ormondville Station opened in 1880, the surrounding township was little more than a rough clearing in the Seventy-Mile-Bush. Although speculators anticipated profits to be made from the district, amenities in the fledgling township were limited. Established in 1876 under the Waipukurau Small Farm Settlement, many original landowners departed in disgust long before the creation of roads to their former properties, let alone the creation of the railway.

Local off-farm employment tended to be railway construction work or at sawmills. Meanwhile, would-be Ormondville farmers, along with Scandinavian settlers on the notoriously muddy Danish Line (now Norsewood-Ormondville Road), struggled to create a semblance of community. Officialdom knew very well when the proposed township would realise the greatest financial reward. It would be auctioned when the railway opened. As a sign of things to come, though, in March 1879, the local Temperance Movement quashed plans to licence a new hotel opposite the station-site.

The railway route through the formidable Seventy-Mile-Bush, including the future site of Ormondville, was surveyed in 1871. Construction of the Hawkes Bay line began at Napier in 1874, and in 1878, it reached Kopua. The next two sections, Kopua to Makotuku, and Makotuku to Tahoraiti, were to be the most geographically challenging on the Hawkes Bay-Manawatu line, with the exception of the Manawatu Gorge.

Inspection of one hillside paddock between Kopua and Ormondville (a rail route in 1880 of some five miles) reveals something unusual. In fact, the paddock’s strange geography was created by a huge killer slip that occurred during construction work. As a result, the track was moved to a safer route leaving the failed cutting stopped abruptly high above the site of the slip.
Another killer slip stopped the construction of a tunnel and the line instead was re-routed to its present site around a very large hill in order to approach the partially completed Ormondville Viaduct. 

Although still only research in progress at this stage, it is understood another tunnel was attempted at a later date. Again this was without success.

Of the three large wooden viaducts on this section - Kopua, Ormondville and Makotuku – the largest at 86 feet high and 606 feet long was the Ormondville Viaduct. Built like the others of locally milled totara, at the time of its demolition in 1907 (having been replaced by the present steel bridge), it was still the highest railway viaduct in the North Island. Its former location and associated rail route are still clearly visible from the town.

Difficulties created by the terrain seriously delayed work on the Kopua-Makotuku section and the Great Flood of late March 1880 compounded the issue. Likened to the equivalent of Cyclone Bola (March 1988) striking the Manawatu River’s catchment area, the resulting deluge created what is at present the river’s third largest known flood, but without the advantages of any flood protection. As darkness approached, Manawatu residents were unaware of what loomed upstream and a number of people were lucky to survive it. One Tiakitahuna child drowned as its parents struggled to get their family to safety.

Meanwhile, the fresh earthworks on the new section of track suffered several more enormous slips. In one case a large tree was left standing upright above the tracks. The new viaducts withstood the strain, but the long-awaiting opening of the Kopua-Makotuku section was delayed four months. It was due to open in April, and perhaps Angus McKay’s crew had already finished building Ormondville’s station and goods shed.

The final opening of the line occurred on Monday, 9 August 1880. However, as the Waipawa Mail (11/8/1880) records: “There was no attempt at anything like display or ceremony” in connection with the event. Instead, “the morning train from Napier, having Mr Miller, railway manager, Mr Carr, resident engineer, and a few passengers aboard, proceeded as far as Ormondville station” A number of children and a few men, whose presence on the platform was mostly from curiosity, watched the train arrive. It could not proceed to Makotuku as a slip in the deep cutting immediate above Ormondville blocked its way. That reopened the following day, but the reporter warned that the loose nature of the soil in the vicinity would make line maintenance very expensive. Clearly, line construction had also proven unexpectedly expensive.

The probable cause of the lack of an official opening was the Government’s decision, announced at this time, to stop work on the next section of track (Makotuku-Tahoraiti). This move angered the many people dependent on the income provided by this work, and large, heated protest meetings occurred in Ormondville and neighbouring towns over subsequent weeks. Thus, Ormondville Station was born amidst controversy, a situation that has from time to time reoccurred.

Note: See the story of Matamau Station for a history of the Makotuku-Tahoraiti section.

Progress

The railway provided the impetus that transformed the district from towering native forest (known deceivingly as ‘bush’) to farmland. The timber industry that flourished in the district over the next several decades, and the constant flow of mud-caked timber wagons, laden heavily with sawn timber, fence posts and firewood, contributed significantly to Ormondville’s outward traffic flow. By January 1881, Ormondville was “thriving”. The Settlers Arms Hotel’s official opening occurred on New Years Day, other substantial buildings were under construction and a church was to be built.

As the district progressed, so to the station grew in size and in the services it offered. In February 1883, it became a telegraph and telephone station, and a Money Order & Savings Bank Office. The courteous and obliging Mr J.W. Douglas, who had been stationmaster since the station opened, coped without assistance. He was then Ormondville’s stationmaster, postmaster, telephonist - and station porter. As a result, in May 1883, the Hawkes Bay Herald expressed concern at his workload, and the very long hours he had to remain on duty.

Roland Edwards, remittance man, ex-engineer, ex-Ormondville station staff member and farmer, remains with his family, a tragic key figure in the town’s and the station’s history. On the night of 10-11 February 1884, several weeks after being sacked from his duties as a part-time porter - for drinking and acting strangely at the station - he murdered his wife and four young children in their home near Fothergill Road. Edwards, who clearly suffered a mental illness, saw the station once or twice more over subsequent days. He then departed permanently to Napier and ultimately the hangman.

Because of the horror killings, the somewhat rabid local Temperance Movement gained control of the district’s Licensing Committee and promptly refused to renew all its liquor licences. The catalyst was the erroneous but widely held belief that Ormondville’s Settlers Arms Hotel was to blame for Edwards’ supposed drinking madness. With the district declared ‘dry’, hotels struggled to survive on income derived solely from passing travellers. Some closed, causing travellers (and certainly hotel owners) considerable difficulty. To ‘water the thirsty’ a Clive brewer,  Joseph Kuhtze, established a brewery near Ormondville, on the Norsewood-Ormondville Road. The law restricted his customers to buying their beer in two-gallon lots, instead of the usual glass or bottle-full. Accordingly, this, and other dubious sources of alcohol that sprang up around the district, created a new crop of local drunks.

Soon the pro-licence faction, aided by some of their former anti-licence neighbours, agitated for the amalgamation of Ormondville and nearby Makotuku (home of two de-licenced hotels). The result was the Ormondville Town Board first elected in November 1885, a new licensing district, and – from June 1887 – three re-licenced hotels!

Ormondville by the latter 1880s thus had a town board, a railway station, a courthouse, a policeman, a school, a hotel and a hall, as well as shops and churches. The town was now a bustling rural service center that catered to the surrounding district and the underlying cause was the railway – and the station.

Buildings on the move

With the gradual decline of the timber industry, sheep, cattle and dairy farms created from the cleared land, generated new business for the station. Thus, around ten years after it opened, came stockyards and a loading bank for wool bales.

All the district’s inward and outward commerce passed through the station, its importance and usage certainly grew, but so to did irritation with its failings. The station building originally stood where the goods shed now is, and the goods shed stood alongside the road where the station now is. In 1899, even Parliament learned of the inadequacy of Ormondville’s goods shed. In July 1900 came yet another complaint regarding the winter quagmire at the station. Then on 15 December 1900, the Hawkes Bay Herald announced that the long discussed alterations to the station were about to take shape. Gangs of men had arrived with sleepers and rails to begin relocating the tracks. On Sunday, 17 February 1901, they moved the goods shed to its present site. Then on Sunday, 24 February, the station followed suit. By late March, work to double the goods shed’s length to its present state neared completion. Major alterations to the station building, which more than doubled in size, neared completion by August 1901.

NZR’s improvements did not include a verandah. However, a “numerously signed petition” from residents of Ormondville, Norsewood and Waikopiro to the Ormondville Town Board sought to rectify the matter. The petition was next forwarded to the local MP to seek his assistance. By late March, approval had been gained and the present ornate verandah took shape during August 1901. Norsewood passengers especially appreciated the new verandah, as the Norsewood coach arrived around half an hour before the train.

Other work at this time included doubling the loading bank size, trebling the freight sidings, and increasing the stockyard capacity fivefold. To accommodate the increased passenger traffic, the platform length also trebled to service six carriages.

People

The peak year for passengers, 1943, saw 15,000 tickets sold, at a daily average of 41. A daily express serviced the station, while a range of lesser trains tested the patience of travellers by shunting at most stations. All mail travelled by train, and for many years, was sorted in transit in a special mail carriage. The station also handled ‘big parcels’ traffic and received milk for the local dairy factory.

The station platform witnessed many special community events, including the arrival and departure of special guests, and passing trains carrying VIPs - although unfortunately it was at nearby Makotuku station that the 1954 Royal Train dropped its tablet. Others were the children’s annual excursion to Napier, and the many Saturday afternoons where entire wedding parties farewelled newlyweds. Frequently the flag-bedecked station served as the town’s standard-bearer in acknowledgment of significant national and international events. More poignant, though, were the farewells of sons to war, and the enormous joy and relief at their welcome home.

As rail traffic increased, the station became an important crossing place. In addition, the installation of signals and the tablet system controlled traffic speed and flow, and – theoretically - prevented collisions. This lesson, after a major mishap in the station yard, was one that a (former!) Ormondville staff member vowed never to forget.

At the autumn peak, the heavy livestock and fruit traffic saw signals staff working three shifts around the clock. As crossing trains lengthened, so to did the sidings. The installation of special sidings, called backshunts, included three intricate track components called double slips. The train-crossing system at Ormondville became a distinctive item of railway practice.

The station attained its business peak during the 1950s. The annual livestock throughput totalled around 7,000 cattle and 120,000 sheep. Some 10,000 bales of wool passed over the loading bank and 20,000 tons of fertiliser arrived. The station’s fifteen employees consisted of two clerks, three men on signals, six on track work and four on the bridge gang. Some occupied the town’s seven railway houses. With their families, the railway employees helped maintain the viability of community facilities, including the school, sports teams and shops.

The dark before dawn

The decline of Ormondville station reflects a national pattern. Mechanisation, improved materials and contracting out work, were amongst changes to railway maintenance policy. As a result, the bridge gang went in 1982, followed by the track gang in 1986. Road transportation had also predominated over rail transport. Thus, in 1985, the station’s administrative staff and stationmaster suffered the need to seek employment elsewhere and freight operations ceased at Ormondville. Finally, the signals staff left in 1991. Such job losses naturally impacted heavily upon small rural communities such as Ormondville.

The history of Ormondville Rail Preservation Group traces to the official closure of the Ormondville goods yards on 31 August 1985. Its demise was part of a big modernisation program to close all country stations and concentrate on long distance haulage. This was the ‘Rogernomics’ era and Richard Prebble was Minister of Railways.

Local rail fan, Wayne Haste, learned of plans to demolish the goods shed and began a campaign to save it. Thus, on 15 April 1986, the day before tenders for the goods shed’s demolition closed, a public meeting was held at the Ormondville Hall to save the station. The resulting committee, named the ‘Ormondville Railway Complex Preservation Committee’, sought to save the whole precinct. After surviving a saga of frustration at the hands of central bureaucracy (and adopting the present name in 1987), plus a rapid decline in the town’s infrastructure (e.g. the shop, post office and garage closed), things involving the station slowly began to improve. ORPG later learned that the Ormondville “resistance movement” influenced a change in Railways policy. Previously unwanted buildings were always removed or demolished. Leasing them on site had never been considered. Restoration work, as means allowed, began in 1992. Then in early 1996, ORPG received a $55,000 Lottery Heritage Grant to complete the restoration project. As a result, the station won the 1997 Rail Heritage Award.

On Sunday, 30 November 1997, the flag-bedecked Ormondville Station finally enjoyed, after a 117-year wait, its ‘official’ opening. Wyatt Creech, MP for Wairarapa, unveiled the plaques, and Dr Francis Small, Managing Director of Tranz Rail (who was once part of a work gang based in the station yard), Bill Bly, Mayor of Tararua District and Fred Playle, ORPG’s President, also spoke. Meanwhile, Euan McQueen, chairman of the Rail Heritage Trust, acted as MC. Some 400-500 people crowded onto the platform to witness the ceremony and the town was packed with cars, buses and a traction engine. This was certainly a far more impressive line-up than the would-be celebrants of 9 August 1880.

A major feature of the day’s activities was the participation the Norsewear Express (aka the Capital Connection), which brought west coast visitors to Ormondville to attend both this event and the Norsewood Market Day. Publicity included feature articles in the region’s various newspapers, plus a full-page colour spread in the Dominion. In addition, the National Radio programme, Country Life, devoted a 30-minute segment to the market day and the opening. This aired on 14 December. Holmes also filmed at the station a few days earlier, but dropped the segment in favour of screening Miss Universe-NZ’s family squabbles. Then on 13 May 1999, the station featured on the prime-time T.V. programme Epitaph, in the course of a 20-minute segment on the nineteenth century part-time station porter and murderer, Roland Edwards. Sightseers began arriving as a result the weekend before the episode screened.

Other promotional activities involving the station included two ‘First Day’-type envelopes featuring the station. The first, sponsored by the Scandinavian Club of Manawatu, saw the envelopes travel the old mail coach route from Norsewood to Ormondville by horse-drawn vehicle. They then travelled to Palmerston North on the Bay Express for stamping by NZ Post. This event was in association with the Norsewood 125th Jubilee in March 1997, and proceeds were shared between the station and Norsewood Museum. A similar ‘First Day’ envelope, run in conjunction with the official opening day, was passed to another organisation to run due to ORPG’s overstretched human resources. A few of these are still available. Since 1998, coffee mugs featuring the station have also been produced as a fund-raiser by ORPG.

On the stormy Sunday morning of 28 November 1999, 119 years after opening, 116 years after entering the telephonic communication age and 70 years after receiving electricity, the old station leapt into cyberspace. This unexpected transformation more than compensated for the loss of ORPG’s major annual Open Day, which had just been cancelled because of the weather.

Until late 2001 and although unstaffed, Ormondville Station remained open for passengers on the daily Bay Express. That service has now ceased, but, as many of its passengers will attest, on weekends when ORPG members were present, the station sometimes briefly hosted a platform-full of passing rail travellers. Then - with the impatient ring of the old station bell – they were gone.

In addition to maintaining the station precinct, ORPG also caters for passing excursion trains, bus tour groups and a range of other visitors, including Bed & Breakfast guests. To date it has won two heritage preservation awards.

Background Set: Shawna's Graphics