Lottery cash keeps restoration on track

Work is under way to replace the decking on Taumarere's Long Bridge. Photo/Supplied

A Lottery grant of almost $500,000 has given a major boost to plans to reopen the historic railway line between Kawakawa and Opua.

The Bay of Islands Vintage Railway Trust is working to restore the 14km railway but a 340m-long wooden bridge over the confluence of three rivers had proved a serious obstacle.

Trains run about 6km to Taumarere but to go any further Bridge 9, better known as Long Bridge, has to be rebuilt at great cost. The bridge has 147 piles in 33 piers, every one of which has to be replaced. However, a grant of $471,000 from the World War One Commemorations fund, administered by the Lottery Grants Board's Environment and Heritage Committee, means the crucial work can now go ahead.

Trust funding manager Frank Leadley said the grant was "huge" for the railway. It had been achieved with strong support from Mayor John Carter and councillor Sally Macauley.

It was enough to fully fund the re-piling by Northland firm Rintoul Civil. In a separate project, the historic bridge is being re-decked with funding from the Far North District Council. The bridge also forms an essential link in the council-driven Pou Herenga Tai/Twin Coast Cycle Trail.

Railway trust chairman Johnson Davis said the council was turning the railway corridor into a cycle path as an interim measure until Long Bridge was restored and a new station built at Opua. Once the work was complete, rail track would replace the cycle path and cyclists would be carried by train for the last leg of the coast-to-coast trail.

From the outset, the intention was that cyclists would be carried by vintage steam train between Opua and Kawakawa. Cyclists and pedestrians were legally barred from using any railway corridor also used by trains, Mr Davis said.

Mr Leadley said the trust was grateful to the council for forming the track, clearing a tunnel blocked by a slip, and re-decking Long Bridge.

Planning for the new railway station at Opua, at a site known as Colenso Triangle, is under way. The complex would include a station building with toilets, cafe, shop, cycle hire and storage, parking, a wetland platform, turntable, water tower and safe access from State Highway 11.

"It will be a massive boost for tourism and economic development in the area, and also hugely significant in restoring the North Island's first railway," Mr Leadley said.