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.

Kapitea Siding

In late January 1903 the West Coast Times reported that two news sawmills were bing receted between between the Kapitea and Acre Creeks on the Hokitika railway line. On the 6th of November 1903 that year a correspondent from the Grey River Argus reported on progress... I paid a visit to Kapitea recently and one cannot help but wonder at the marvel of man. A year ago Kapitea was a wild place, unknown in name, even today one of the best equipped sawmill plants of the coast is adding to the production of Westland. Mr Alex Thompson, the genial manager, spared no pains in the construction of the Westland sawmill, and he and his partner (Mr Otto Petersen) are leaving no stone unturned to make their mill one of the best in every way. Messrs. Gillies and Wilson are also erecting a very powerful mill at Kapitea, and I am given to understand that both the Westland mill and G and W's mill will use the one siding. The only thing now remaining is to have a station erected and have trains to stop there instead of at present, at Chesterfield.

Kapitea Siding was established, 13 miles 46 chains (21.85km) from Greymouth in either later 1903 or early 1904, though without the station the Grey River Argus reporter hoped for. 

By mid-July 1907 the Baxter brothers had taken an interest in Wilson and Gillies' sawmills at Kumara Junction and Kapitea while in November 1907 the Westland Sawmilling Company's sawmill at Kapitea Creek (with all necessary plant) and bush engine and all necessary gear were for sale by tender. 

In April 1908 Baxter Brothers Mill was calling for tenders for the laying 60 chains of tramway and in June that year they were advertising for the a locomotive engine driver to support their mill work. 

1911 saw the establishment of the Westland Kapitea Brick Company and by July that year this company was railing bricks from Kapitea Siding for West Coast building projects. The Grey River Argus reported that Experts who have examined them say they are equal to; anything produced, in the Dominion, "and should command a ready sale.” This company continued using the Kapitea siding until mid-1917. 

1919 saw the commencement of a gold dredge in the Kapitea Creek upstream from the railway bridge it seems highly likely its components were brought in by rail. 

In November 1923 The K.K. Sawmilling Company (Kumara and Kapitea) was constructing a new sawmill at Kapitea creek, capable of an output of. 350,000 feet monthly. It is estimated that there is twenty years' cutting in the Waimea district. It was reported that a railway siding has been laid and a silver pine bridge to carry the tram is being constructed across the Kapitea creek in close proximity to the site of the mill. The company has several fine clumps of silver pine on the land being cut over. As the Depression deepened in appears the Kapitea sawmill has closed down for some time around mid-1927. 

Sawmilling operations resumed in early 1937 and the tram line was extended. On the 27th of September 1937 the Greymouth Evening Star reported that this morning’s train from Hokitika to Greymouth was delayed half an hour by the derailment of one of the train wagons near the K. K. Sawmilling Company’s siding, between Awatuna and Kumara Junction. The Greymouth-Christchurch express was correspondingly delayed, on account of the late arrival of the Hokitika train.

A 1943 aerial photo of the site of Kapitea Siding, just to the right/north of the Kapitea Creek rail and road bridges. The old tram line can be seen curving around on the south side of the creek.

A 1959 topo map of Chesterfield and Kapitea

Sawmilling at Kapitea continued until late 1939. On the 7th of December 1939 tenders were invited for the purchase of the sawmilling property of K.K. Sawmilling Company, Limited, at Kapitea, comprising Sawmill complete, petrol winch and steam winch, petrol locomotive, log trucks, timber areas, and 4½  miles of steel tramway.

With all industry now gone from the area the Kapitea siding was later removed. 

Dc4634 on a special shunt service to Hokitika just north of Kapitea on 20 October 1998. In the morning Dsc2652 had run the X6 shunt to Hokitika. Dc4634 was to operate the northbound service with Dsc2652 running attached dead.

Dxc5293 and Dxb5172 hauling the X6 shunt across Kapitea Creek to Greymouth on 11 March 2020