Pages tagged with: railway stations

Before most people had cars or telephones, let alone television and the Internet, the railway provided many communities with their main connection to the outside world.

In the heyday of rail travel the station was a vibrant hub of community life.

Refreshments are an essential and often talked about part of any train journey.

Railway stations came in all shapes and sizes, ranging from imposing big-city monuments to elegant wooden provincial structures and tiny rural shelter sheds.

Like other public facilities, railway stations often attracted loafers and drunks, bored teenagers or lonely souls seeking human contact.

Passengers board the luxurious all-sleeper Silver Star at Wellington Station in 1974. Unfortunately, the service did not survive the decade.

Taihape was one of the many towns in the central North Island that owed their existence to the main trunk line. It was also home to one of New Zealand's best-known railway refreshment rooms, where bleary-eyed travellers poured off overnight trains for a quick 'cuppa and a pie'.

For many years the scramble for refreshments at railway stations was one of the central rituals of New Zealand life. In 1946 the Refreshment Branch served more than nine million travellers.

Paekakariki was another well-known refreshment stop on the main trunk line.

Today fewer than 100 railway stations survive, and only about 40 wooden stations remain on their original sites.

New Zealand Railways reward notice

Oamaru's long wooden station is typical of the stations built in major provincial centres around the turn of the 20th century.

Resembling a modern European or Asian metro station, Auckland’s gleaming Britomart Transport Centre has helped boost rail commuter patronage in this sprawling, car-dominated city.

The colourful Carterton station (completed in 1880) has been restored by the Wairarapa Railway Restoration Society and houses the Carterton Community and Railway Museum.

Helensville was once a popular refreshment stop for passengers travelling north of Auckland.

In the early 20th century some busy stations, such as Frankton Junction (seen here in the 1930s), earned unsavoury reputations as unsafe places for women travelling alone.

These decorative floor tiles are just one of the many striking design features of the George Troup-designed Dunedin station.

New Zealand’s finest station, in Dunedin, celebrates the glory of rail in stained-glass windows.

Big-city railway stations, such as Wellington's, were powerful symbols of civic pride and prosperity.