Enzed Transport: January 2015

Saturday, 3 January 2015

23 MARCH, 1998

Hon John Luxton, the Minister of Lands, announced today that the ultimate decision on the Riverton bridge lies with the Southland Regional Council and the local community.

This follows the Minister's agreement to Land Information New Zealand reactivating a resource consent application to remove the Riverton Rail Bridge and causeway with the Southland Regional Council.

"The bridge is located at Riverton in Southland. It was constructed in 1904. In 1978 it became surplus to railway requirements and has not been maintained since 1977. Since then, wave action and tidal currents have eroded the central causeway and the bridge is considered a potential hazard to public safety." Mr Luxton said today.

Because of public safety concerns, the Southland District Council (SDC) requested in 1994 that the former Department of Survey and Land Information, who managed the property on behalf of the Crown, to either upgrade or remove the bridge.

The Department of Survey and Land Information lodged an application with the Southland Regional Council for a resource consent to remove the bridge. As a result of the public notification of the application, a meeting of representatives of the SDC, Riverton Community Board, Department of Conservation, Riverton Heritage Group (RHG) and Land Information New Zealand established that apart from the Riverton Heritage Group, none of the agencies represented wanted to be involved in the future ownership or management of the bridge. Subsequently, RHG submitted a proposal to take over ownership of the bridge to Land Information New Zealand (the successor to the Department of Survey and Land Information) for consideration.

"I have considered the options for retaining or removing the bridge and decided that the RHG proposal does not provide the best outcome overall for the community and the Crown". Mr Luxton said.

"I consider the best option is to proceed with the resource consent to remove the bridge. Once the application is reactivated, I understand that the Southland Regional Council will notify the interested parties in the community and call a public hearing if they consider one is required. The ultimate decision on the Riverton bridge lies with the Southland Regional Council and the local community." Mr Luxton concluded.

Friday, 2 January 2015

Riverton Bridges

Riverton is an interesting place because of its bridges. Due to the size of the Jacobs River Estuary, the early road and railway builders had little choice but to build some very long bridges.

The first bridge was a road/rail structure as can be seen in this photo which was published in 1905. At the moment National Library’s map server is having a hissy fit, so it won’t give out any map images (it just writes some Javascript commands as text when you ask it to show a map). So I haven’t yet come up with any of the really old maps for the area that would go back before the NZMS1 maps that were first published in the 1940s. Those maps might help to show where the bridge was in relation to the current bridges, making it easier to place on the map.

The main conclusion so far I have reached by other means (such as by examining the photos in this post) is to suggest the bridge shown above was probably between the present bridge and the later rail bridge. It appeared to be more in line with a road that came down onto it and therefore possibly was aligned onto the highway without the S bend that there is presently on the northern approach. There are also suggestions of possibly old piles in the river at this point and an old abutment at the south side that tend to align with these suggestions.

As for when the railway bridge was separated out: well the research shows that a new rail-only bridge was under construction in 1903, and that it was commissioned some time around 1905. Just why it was desirable at such an early time as 1903 to have a separate bridge is somewhat hard to understand, since many longer combined bridges around the country, some with very heavy levels of both road and rail traffic (such as the ones at Rakaia and Waitaki south of Christchurch) waited until much longer to be separated. The best info I have come up with is from The Cyclopaedia Of New Zealand (published 1905) which said the new location was “more suitable for traffic purposes” and “escaped a large curve”. This means the rail traffic must have been reasonably significant at the time, considering how much such a long bridge would have cost to build. The present highway bridge was built around 1930 and NZTA recently spent $600,000 strengthening and earthquake proofing it, so the highway traffic must also have demanded a better bridge, which is still standing more than 80 years later. However, it is acknowledged that this bridge is narrow by modern standards and it is programmed to be replaced in the next 20 years, being considered to have high maintenance costs.

Here is a map showing how things might have worked, plus several more useful photos.