The Ngatapa Branch was a secondary branch line railway 18.5 km long that for a short time formed part of the national rail network in Poverty Bay in the North Island of New Zealand. The Ngatapa branch diverged from the Moutohora branch line about 6 km from Gisborne and ran a further 12.5 km across the coastal flat to a terminus at Ngatapa. It was sometimes referred to as the Ngapata branch. Built to the New Zealand standard gauge the branch was originally authorised as part of the proposed inland route for the Wairoa to Gisborne section of the Palmerston North – Gisborne Line. However, in 1924, an engineer's report recommended that the then-new isolated section between Wairoa and Waikokopu in Hawke's Bay be incorporated as the southernmost portion of a new coastal route from Wairoa to Gisborne. The Public Works Department (PWD) accordingly stopped work on the inland Ngatapa route, which was officially opened as a branch line on 15 December 1924, and began work on the coastal route. The Ngatapa branch became a dead end, and it was closed on 1 April 1931.

Construction

Construction started in 1911. The first sod was turned by the Governor, Lord Islington, on Saturday 10 February 1912, just north of King's Road, where the branch was intended to join the line towards Rotorua. In July 1912 it was decided that the junction should instead be near Mākaraka. There was much criticism of slow progress; the 1912 Reform government cut spending on many branches and were slow to mechanise work. In 1914 there were also complaints that a change from cooperative contracts to contracts with small contractors wasn't working. Due to the slips the route near Ngātapa was changed and contracts postponed. The Minister of Public Works, William Fraser, said £45,000 was budgeted for the line in 1914-15 and £45,968 had been spent. The rails reached Ngātapa on 7 July 1914. The only substantial structure was the bridge over the Waipaoa River. It had 3 spans of 25 ft and 2 of 106 ft. A temporary bridge was built over the river in 1913, but swept away in 1914. The line was completed to Ngatapa by December 1915, although it was not formally handed over to the New Zealand Railways Department (NZR) until 15 December 1924. In 1915 earthworks and a short tunnel were being built in the 3 miles beyond Ngātapa. Between 1918 and 1920, work started at Wairoa on the section to Frasertown, which was to have been linked through to Ngatapa, and on the Waikura section beyond Ngatapa, but all work was stopped in 1920 after the Waikura section was found to be unstable. Construction of the line presented few problems as far as Ngatapa. The course of the line beyond this point was a different matter and would have required heavy earthworks and extensive tunnelling the longest being about 1.25 mi. The Gisborne-Wairoa distance as built was 96.05 km. In 1929 the route via Ngātapa had been surveyed as 72 mi and the coastal route via Waikokopu as 68 mi. The surveyed Ngātapa line would have been - Gisborne-Mākaraka 3 mi, -Ngātapa 11 mi, -Wharekōpae 4 mi, -Waikura 5 mi, -Waterfall 6 mi, -Hangaroa 4m, -Te Reinga 17 mi, -Marumaru 9 mi, -Wairoa 10 mi. In his 1919-20 report the Minister said banks had been widened, ballast-crushing intermittently carried on at Repongaere quarry, including 614 tons of lime supplied to farmers (in 1922 it supplied 400 tons of lime), and 2 mi beyond Ngātapa was repegged, levelled, cross-sectioned and had earthworks started. Work also started on the Wairoa to Frasertown section in September 1919. The Minister said progress had been hindered by the shortage of cement and scarcity and quality of labour, which was possibly due to low pay. Beyond Ngatapa, some formation work was undertaken for about 8 km, including the excavation of a short tunnel; including a large cutting, 3 mi was partly formed and rails were laid for 1 mi. Today, earthworks such as embankments and cuttings can still be found, but no actual tunnels can be located, possibly due to collapse in the slip prone ground.

Operations and closure

From 13 December 1915 the Public Works Department (PWD) was operating goods and passenger trains on the branch, though ballasting wasn't completed until 1916, most of it being dragged from the Waipaoa River bed by scoop on an aerial cableway. Traffic was described as very light in 1916. Responsibility for the line was transferred from PWD to NZR on 15 December 1924. The NZR service ran from Gisborne, rather than Mākaraka. The line carried only about 12,000 tonnes of freight per annum, almost all road metal. By 1930 a Railways Commission noted that with the abandonment of the originally proposed inland route the need for the line had disappeared, and the twice-daily Monday to Saturday NZR service attracted an average of only 20 passengers a day. The commission recommended the branch should either close or be taken over by its users, the PWD, or the Gisborne City Council. There were no takers, and the line was closed on 1 April 1931. By 1931 stone from the quarry was almost the only traffic and said not to justify keeping the branch open.

Stations

Stations on the branch were -

Remains

Not much remains of the branch formation or other works on the coastal plain. Apart from the bridge piers of the Waipaoa River crossing between Makaraka and Patutahi, the most significant remains are those past the original terminus at Ngatapa, over which trains never ran but which illustrate the problems that would have faced the constructors if the line had continued into the hills. Beyond the terminus at Ngatapa the formation works take the proposed line through a 180-degree climbing turn before following a winding path across the face of the hills until disappearing into the bush.