Search Railroad Sites For:

Railways of New Zealand
The railway pages of Patrick Dunford

Southbridge Branch

The Hornby Industrial Line is a short (4 km) remnant of the former Southbridge Branch. It runs from Hornby, a suburban Christchurch station 7 km east of the city's main passenger terminal, to a point just short of Prebbleton, which was the first station on the former branch. This section was opened to Lincoln on 26 April 1875, closed to passengers on 12 April 1951 and the Prebbleton - Lincoln section was closed completely on 1 December 1967. The remnant now serves industrial sidings.

Prebbleton was one of the sites offered to the Canterbury Branch of the NZ Railway & Locomotive Society (now the Canterbury Railway Society) for what was to become the Ferrymead Railway (located in Heathcote, Christchurch), in the mid 1960s. In the 1980s Prebbleton was home to the Southern Rail Preservation Society, a tiny grouping of refugees from Ferrymead and other local groups headed by railfan identity Roger Redward. Various old twinset and Vulcan railcars and other stock were railed to Prebbleton to be cut up for scrap by the group to raise funds. Southern Rail's extensive collection of rolling stock which included part of an old twinset, DG class locomotive No. 2376 (now at the Weka Pass Railway), an EB class shunting locomotive, 50 foot steel carriages and a steam crane, was stored here for years. Another DG class locomotive, No. 2451, was stored at Linwood Loco Depot, and a D class steam locomotive was kept at a freight yard in Woolston. Following the non-payment of rental charges for the storage of stock, and matrimonial property disputes, towards the end of 1987 the entire collection was towed by a Railways shunting locomotive to the Linwood Loco Depot in central Christchurch, and put up for auction to defray debts. Mr Redward bought back some of the stock from the Railways and stored it for several years at the former Anderson's Foundry in Woolston. The collection was subsequently broken up with some going to other railway groups in NZ and the rest for scrap, including DG 2451 which was towed to Sockburn to rust away for several more years before being cut up at Pacific Metal Industries in the early 1990s.

Although the track is still present as far as the main road crossing just north of Prebbleton station, it has been disused for a number of years and in Southern Rail times, although there was track through the Prebbleton yard as far as the Tosswill Road crossing, tracksets were lifted under the road overbridge in order to isolate the SR trackage from the Railways' line. At one time the Railways' then-new spot resleepering machines visited this line, sometime in the 1980s, as can be seen in places with every fourth sleeper newer than its mates. The overbridge was built at the Prebbleton road crossing in the late 1930s, but was removed in early 1998. The official end of line is now a point just north of the Marshs Road level crossing. At that time, it was expected that the track beyond that point would be lifted, and the land sold. However on visiting the line in 2005 it was observed that the track remains in place, although extremely overgrown.

DG 2376 / RM 119 1987	DG 2376 at Prebbleton, RM 119	DG 2451 at Linwood	End of line 1998	Hornby Industrial Line - Amyes Road 14/05/05 14:51 1/800 sec F4.5
Hornby Industrial Line - approaching Hornby 14/05/05 14:45 1/320 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Halswell Junction Road 14/05/05 15:02 1/500 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Halswell Junction Road 14/05/05 15:02 1/800 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Halswell Junction Road 14/05/05 15:02 1/400 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Klondyke Drive 14/05/05 15:15 1/160 sec F4.5
Hornby Industrial Line - Klondyke Drive 14/05/05 15:15 1/400 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Main South Road 13/05/05 14:41 1/500 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Main South Road 13/05/05 14:42 1/250 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Main South Road 14/05/05 14:47 1/800 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Marshs Road 14/05/05 15:37 1/60 sec F4.0
Hornby Industrial Line - Marshs Road 14/05/05 15:35 1/60 sec F2.8	Hornby Industrial Line - Marshs Road 14/05/05 15:35 1/80 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Prebbleton 14/05/05 15:46 1/400 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - shunt arriving Hornby 13/05/05 16:40 1/125 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Springs Road 14/05/05 15:53 1/200 sec F4.5
Hornby Industrial Line - Springs Road 14/05/05 15:48 1/125 sec F4.5	Hornby Industrial Line - Springs Road 14/05/05 15:54 1/200 sec F4.5	Ladbrookes	Ladbrookes	Ladbrooks 1985
Lincoln 1985	Lincoln 1985	Lincoln bridge abutments	Lincoln goods shed	Marshs Road north 1998
Marshs Road north 1998	Marshs Road south 1998	Marshs Road south 1998	Prebbleton overbridge 1987	Prebbleton overbridge from yard 1987
Prebbleton rolling stock 1987	Prebbleton station platform 1987	Prebbleton yard from north end 1987	RM 119 at Linwood 1990	RM 119 end section at Linwood
RM 119, Prebbleton 1987	Southern Rail rolling stock at Linwood	Springs Road north 1988	Springs Road south 1998	Springs Road south 1998
Tosswill Road level crossing 1985	Tosswill Road north 1998

Free Web Hosting Since 1996. Join & Become Part of the TrainWeb's Railroad Community.