Kawakawa Central
Twice a week I travel 25 minutes out to Kawakawa for work, a few days ago I took this photo from near the top of town at the beginning of the shops. Kawakawa originated as a service town when coal was found in 1861 and railed out to Opua for for shipment but once mining finished the government wanted to remove the lines, however the local uproar was so huge that instead it was connected to Whangarei and then the national network.
When the North Auckland Line was fully opened in 1925, the Opua Express passenger train operated thrice weekly from Auckland to Opua. Freight did not operate directly to Auckland; it was conveyed to and from Whangarei, with other services operating south. Some trains were mixed trains, conveying both passengers and freight.
In November 1956, railcars replaced the Opua Express. Unfortunately for Opua, the railcars operated to the other northern terminus of Okaihau on the Okaihau Branch, leaving Opua without any dedicated passenger trains. Passengers had to rely on mixed trains, which did not connect with the railcars. Nonetheless, the mixed trains lasted another two decades (longer than the railcars, which ceased operating in 1967); the last one ran between Whangarei and Opua on 18 June 1976. By the 1980s, regular freight services beyond Kawakawa were becoming irregular due to the decline of shipping to Opua as a result of containerisation. It was last used in 1985 and leased to the Bay of Islands Vintage Railway to operate tourist passenger services from Opua to Kawakawa, including running down the centre of Kawakawa's main street.
In fact I happened to be in the right place at the right time and took this video of the tram going past.
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