The Dun Mountain Railway was a privately owned and operated narrow gauge, long horse-drawn tramway from chromite mines in the vicinity of Duppa Lode on the eastern slopes of Wooded Peak to Nelson port in the Tasman District of New Zealand's South Island. It operated from 3 February 1862 to 30 May 1901, with the last mineral traffic on the incline section operated in January 1866.
This line was the first "railway" to be opened and operated in New Zealand, preceding the first public railway and the first railway to be operated by steam trains, the line between Ferrymead and Christchurch, which opened on 1 December 1863. The city of Nelson had the first city tramway to both open and close in New Zealand.
History
Background Prominent advocates for the mining of mineral deposits found on Wooded Peak included a syndicate formed by William Long Wrey, William Travers and William Wells. In the winter of 1853 a local runholder, George Duppa, discovered a large deposit of chromite between Wooded Peak and Dun Mountain, about 8 kilometres south-east of Nelson township. It was named the Duppa Lode, but considered to be of no commercial value at the time.
The syndicate readily agreed that in order to exploit the mineral deposits a tramway would need to transport the product back to Nelson. After attempts to raise capital for the project locally failed in August 1853, Wrey headed to England in October to raise further capital. His efforts were successful, resulting in the formation of the New Zealand Land Fund Association backed by 20 London financiers, who had each contributed £500. Wrey returned to New Zealand on 8 August 1855 with 24 miners and an engineer, Jeremiah How.
In early 1857 the Dun Mountain Copper Mining Company Ltd. formed, and shareholders in the Cook's Straight Company previously formed by the mining syndicate were able to exchange their shares for fully paid-up ones in the new company, with a further 5,000 B shares reserved for sale in New Zealand.
The first shareholders' meeting of the company took place on 22 July 1857. Investors learned of plans to construct a long light railway along the Maitai Valley - to be worked up the incline by horses and in the opposite direction by gravity.
To determine the extent of the copper deposits on which the company could rely the directors employed mining engineer Thomas R. Hacket. A local management committee was appointed to assist Hacket, consisting of Wrey, Wells, merchant George Ridings and Maxwell Bury as secretary.
Hacket arrived in Nelson on 31 October 1857 and set about appraising the copper deposits, which he found wanting. Rather than make known in Nelson his disappointing first impression, he allowed the survey for the Maitai Valley railway to go ahead.
On completion of the survey, conducted by local engineer Edward Moody, the first consignment of tramway materials arrived from London on 11 January 1858. They were stored in the company's yard on Haven Road pending the enactment of the necessary railway legislation.
By 1858 word had spread locally of Hacket's negative reports on the deposits, causing considerable antagonism between Hacket and Wrey. Some of the shareholders in London were sufficiently angry to claim that Wrey had defrauded them. Though Wrey was never subjected to legal action, he was removed from the Nelson management committee.
Though it was realised that there were no commercially exploitable copper deposits in the mineral belt, Hacket was sufficiently impressed with the chromite deposits that had earlier been found on Wooded Peak. The directors were thus dissuaded from liquidating the company while awaiting the testing of chromite samples forwarded to England. As these new mineral deposits were at a higher elevation on Wooded Peak the earlier proposed route of the tramway along the Maitai Valley had become redundant, and Hacket set about investigating a more direct route around Wooded Peak.
Testing confirmed the high quality of the ore, later confirmed by Joseph Gibbs in June 1858. In 1859 Hacket demonstrated with underground prospecting that the deposits persisted below the surface. With his favourable reports extolling the extent of the ore available, the directors were convinced to begin mining, which would involve a tramway from the Coppermine Saddle to Nelson Port. On 24 February 1860 notice was given by company secretary Maxwell Bury of the company's intention to seek legislative approval for the construction of a tramway along a route chosen by Hacket.
Construction
Two Irish engineers with railway experience, William Doyne assisted by Abraham Fitzgibbon, were engaged by the directors to manage the construction of the line. They arrived in Nelson along with the Fitzgibbon's family on 18 July 1860.
They quickly dismissed Hacket's proposal and agreed that a better route to Wooded Peak was to be had through the Brook Valley. This change in plans was not well received by the committee that had been appointed to study the proposal as submitted for the accompanying legislation, which was accordingly withdrawn by the company.
The earthworks for the long section between the mines and the Wairoa Saddle were put out to tender in 1861 and awarded the following February to contractors Charles Ambler, John Davis and Robert Carter, each working on approximately equal lengths. The work included a wide ledge in the side of Wooded Peak, drainage and six bridges.
The route of the next section from Brook Street to the Wairoa Saddle was debated amongst the engineers, but they eventually settled on a gradient of 1:18 for the first with the rest at 1:20. This was divided into seven sections that were put to tender and let on 3 June 1861 to, amongst others, the contractors Hale, Vercoe and party; John Ward and John Mitchell; John Brown and George Cummins; and W. Martin and John Avery.
The company advertised for a supply of 20,000 sleepers after rejecting a trial in which sleepers had been cut from trees adjoining the rail formation. The price they were quoted in response was £1 per hundred more than the price they had earlier received for sleepers supplied from their own land, but having spent two months on the tender process they decided to proceed with the tenders received from the sawmills. Approximately 24,000 sleepers were required.
On 17 August the Dun Mountain Railway Act authorising the construction of the railway on public lands was passed. It was based on earlier bills from the Provincial Council and one of 1860 which was withdrawn over the issue of the route of the line.
The act allowed the company to begin construction of the line from the incline section through Nelson, following Brook, Tasman, Manuka, Alton, Hardy, and Rutherford Streets, and along the shoreline on Haven Road to the port. Three contracts for this section were let in late August 1861 to contractors Mark Blythe and Robert Carter. Work on the town section was completed within four months.
At around the same time work commenced on the formation between the incline and the port, Dudderidge Gibbs submitted a successful tender for track laying work on the incline section. This work started on 4 September 1861, but it was soon clear that it would not be completed by the end of the year as expected. Eager to begin revenue traffic on the line, the company dismissed Gibbs despite his protestations, and continued the work itself on 23 September.
The final shipment of rails arrived on 25 October 1861, numbering 2,314, including 26 casks of bolts. The last rail was laid in January 1862.
Inauguration
The railway was officially opened on 3 February 1862. Around £75,000 had been spent, of which approximately a third went into the construction of the railway.
At noon, horse-drawn paired wagons left the company depot in Brook Street for the port, with the Nelson Brass Band being seated in the first pair of wagons. The next set of wagons carried company officials and guests, also on temporary seating. The remaining wagons were loaded with ore.
The procession proceeded along streets lined with the local inhabitants, who had earlier erected flags and banners. Once the procession reached the port and the ore had been dumped at the privately owned Albion Wharf, they returned to town.
In gratitude for the efforts of the men who had been involved in the construction of the line, the company gave each of them a paid holiday, and treated them to a lunch at the Freemasons' Hall. As was then customary several speeches were given, after which a toast was offered to Wrey. The day's festivities were concluded with a soiree and ball.
Operation
Freight services
The tramway's act of parliament prohibited the use of locomotives within the city limits. This was no real problem for the company, as they had always intended to work the line with horses and rely on gravity for descending ore wagons. The horses averaged when pulling empty wagons up the incline to the mines, where they were unhitched and returned to First House on Brook Street. Once the wagons were full, they descended to Nelson in pairs under the control of a brakeman.
Trials were undertaken to determine safe working procedures for descending wagons. It was soon discovered that as the line had over 700 corners ranging from radius, descending speeds in excess of meant an unacceptable risk of derailment. At the bottom of the incline, the wagons usually retained sufficient momentum to continue unaided to the corner of Hardy and Rutherford Streets. The wagons were then hauled by horses at up to through the city to the port where the ore was later shipped to England from the Provincial Government-owned wharf.
In February 1862 the company prohibited the carriage of any persons in the wagons on the line as the entire capacity of the 20 wagons was required for the transport of the ore. Horses hauled the empty wagons up to the mine in the mornings, and once loaded they departed for the port under gravity at 13:15. The distance was expected to be covered in 45 minutes to Third House, with a further 1 hour and 30 minutes to the Alton Street depot. Any trip conducted in less than the allotted time could lead to the dismissal of the brakeman for speeding. On 23 March 1862 the capacity of the line was increased with the arrival of an additional 25 wagons.
In late 1862 Fitzgibbon had to tell the directors in London that the ore was not available in such abundance as was first thought. It was no longer profitable to continue to mine the chromite, and after transporting around of the ore mining operations were suspended from early 1863. Thereafter, the company relied on sales of firewood, timber, flagstones and road gravel from its own land, and revenue from the passenger "city bus" (a horse-dawn tram) to meet their overheads. This generated only around £1,300 per year, approximately a quarter from the passenger operation.
However, by mid-1863 the chromite market showed signs of improvement, allowing the company to sell of ore and receive forward orders for an additional either stored in England or en route from Nelson. In order to stabilise the demand for its ore, the company purchased a controlling stake in Connah's Quay Chemical Company, a dye manufacturer due to be established in North Wales.
Confident in the security of the market for chromite, the company resumed mining on Wooded Peak later that year. With the departure of Hacket, the company sought to hire someone with mining experience to support the Nelson management team, and accordingly appointed an experienced mining engineer by the name of Joseph Cock from Tavistock in Devon as the new manager.
The company had also developed some new sources of revenue, including lime from a kiln built at Wooded Peak, gravel for use on the roads, and the leasing of wagons to local merchants for the transport of inbound goods from the port to Nelson.