As we all know the Otago Central Railway is the most complete closed branch line in New Zealand ever. The Rail Trail concept was never thought of before to the extent that it was applied when the OCR closed in 1990. Today you have public access to 214 km of the original 236 km, the balance being submerged beneath the Dunstan hydro lake. What was originally one continuous route of the NZR line is now split in three: the Taieri Industrial line for the first 3.5 km from Wingatui, the Taieri Gorge Railway Local Authority Trading Enterprise operating on the tracks for the next 60 km to Middlemarch, and the Otago Central Rail Trail on the remaining 150 km.
I am writing about this to report that I have spent a lot of time recently updating my map of the Otago Central Railway, and will continue to do so over the break. As a general rule I am introducing content to this site from my old “enzedrail” Trainweb site, so the descriptive pages with photo thumbnails about the OCR will be posted on NZ Rail Maps soon. They will embed content that is actually stored and accessible on my Picasa Web Albums where I currently have 381 photos of the line in its various forms over the past 22 years. Once I have finished putting the map together I will be publishing the pages so as to have the references to the map and its availability appear in Google.
