Saturday 17 June 2017

Otago Central Railway [31B]: Alexandra 2

So I will shortly draw up the map for Alexandra, in the meantime here are some photos.

This one is from Weston Langford and it shows Alexandra in January 1964. We can see the goods shed did not have an internal track like most sheds did. Instead, the wagons were unloaded under a verandah outside. This would be a simple and cheap way of increasing the capacity of the shed but in the freezing cold Central Otago winters would not give pleasant working conditions. It's noted in D&E in a photo of Omakau that they had the only goods shed in NZ that had a fireplace inside it - Omakau is one of the coldest places in NZ in winter with -21 degrees recorded at Ophir in 1995. 

 The road rail bridge.
 The road and railway approaching the combined bridge.

 Combined bridge.

 Road approach to the bridge.

 Crossing the roadway, the footway to the right was added for the rail trail and is not original.

 Looking up the river.

 No ordinary pathway with a kilometre peg alongside.

 SH85 crossing at Alexandra.

 The station platform. The yard area has been sold into private ownership. There are no railway buildings on the former yard land. The station was demolished about 1992. The local service clubs have proposed building a replica of the station but this has yet to get off the ground.

 At one of the level crossings a railway mural has been painted onto an adjoining business premises.

Another view of this mural. In the foreground is possibly a trackside telephone box. There would not have been many crossing alarms on the line so I am presuming it was not controls for alarms.