Chesterfield

Chesterfield station was located 23.09 km south of Greymouth and some 900 metres south of the Kapitea Creek bridge. 

On the 14th of October 1892 the Public Works Department asked the Railways Commissioners to approve a flag station, to have a shelter shed and platform. This approval was granted. Originally named Chesterfield Road it was renamed Chesterfield Road by the Public Works Department it was renamed Chesterfield on the 10th of November 1893 the moth before the railway to Hokitika was officially opened. 

One of the unique features of Chesterfield is that its only access was by rail and it was not until 1931 that road access was available to the north to Kumara Junction. In 1937 the coastal road from Kumara Junction to Flowery Creek, just north of Arahura was finally completed and this is now part of State Highway 6. The railway was, therefore, an essential connection for the small coastal communities.

On the north side of Kapitea Creek there was another small settlement, Kapitea. On the 21st of March 1906 the West Coast Times reported that The member for the district has with much thoughtfulness and consideration arranged for the expenditure of £75 by the County Council to make a track and footbridge across the Kapitea Creek railway bridge to enable the school children and residents in the vicinity to get to the Chesterfield Station. The matter was brought before Mr Seddon by the County Council on the occasion of his last visit to the town.

On the 20th of July 1922 the Greymouth Evening Star reported that The Hon. D. H. Guthrie (Minister of Railways) has written to Mr. T. E. Y. Seddon, M.P., as follows, "With reference to your representations, forwarding a petition from residents of Chesterfield urging that a siding be provided at the local railway station, I have the honour to inform you that the country in the vicinity is of poor quality and sparsely settled, and neither the present nor the prospective traffic is sufficient to warrant the expenditure which would be involved in furnishing the facility in question. It is understood there is a partly formed road along the beach which will, when completed, give a connection between Arahura and Kumara and provide an access from the Chesterfield district to the Awatuna station, distant one and three-quarter miles by road. The request made by the petitioners has been carefully considered but it is regretted that in the circumstances it cannot be complied with."

As well as passengers cream was sent out on the railway and locals groceries and general goods were sent to Chesterfield as indicated in some newspaper accounts...

On the 19th of October 1928 the Hokitika Guardian reported that G. E. Wilson of Chesterfield had written to the Westland Progress League protesting against a suggestion that the Chesterfield stop on the Greymouth-Hokitika line should be cut out on express night

On the 18th of May 1929 P H Martin of Kapitea wrote a letter to the editor of the Greymouth Eveining Star complaining about the lack of a road to Kapitea and Chesterfield... Shall we continue without a road, content to carry on; getting up still a bit earlier in the mornings when the cream must go away half a mile along a railway track to the station. Method: wheelbarrow, father pushing, mother pulling with a rope because of loose gravel. Wondering and worrying all the time, will the rising generation wake up while we are away and burn the house down; or will they only empty the ink into the sugar? You never know. But. seriously, sir, we feel that it is 'time something definite was done in this matter and this road brought to a useful stage at least to Chesterfield station.

“Drunkeness is no excuse for a crime,” said Mr Rex Abernethy, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court, Greymouth, yesterday (the 7th of September 1949), when Sydney Joseph Samways, aged 47, a labourer, was fined £10 with 10s costs, when he was charged with stealing groceries valued at £2 8s, the property of Iris Thomson, as reported in the Grey River Argus. Samways, who pleaded guilty, was also ordered to make out a return for the stolen groceries. Detective-Sergeant N. Thompson said that the complainant had ordered the groceries from a Greymouth firm, which had delivered them to the Chesterfield railway station. When he arrived to pick them up he found the goods to be missing and reported the loss to the police. A constable visited the accused at his home several miles from the station and found him lying drunk in his 'bed. The constable saw the groceries under his bed, but the accused denied taking them. Several days later, however, the accused admitted the theft, added the detective-sergeant. The accused had not previously been before the court on a charge of dishonesty.

An aerial photo of Chesterfield station, top left, the Kapitea Creek road and rail bridges and site of Kapitea Siding taken on 27 May 1943

From a 1959 topo map showing the Chesterfield sataion site, the Kapitea Creek bridge site. Notice the tramway still shown crossing Kapitea Creek - Kapitea Siding would have been in this area.

Chesterfield railway station looking north towards Greymouth, 10 April 1966. Photographer unknown. Source NZ Rail Geography Yahoo Group.

Mixed trains ended on the West Coast on the 11th of September 1967 before all rail passenger services ended with the withdrawal of railcar services on the Ross line on the 9th of October 1972. Chesterfield station was finally closed to all traffic on the 30th of September 1973.

Dc 4663, bathed in the late afternoon, winter sun, hauls the X6 Shunt through Chesterfield, north of the old station site, on 17 July 1998.