This will be the last article in this series for a few weeks because I have to finish writing the first part of the Otago Central series to get it ready for publication.
Inangahua is a township between Reefton and Westport. It is at the junction of SH6 to Nelson/Westport and SH69 to Reefton. It was also planned as a railway junction. A rail line was planned to be built from Nelson to Inangahua via Murchison. Construction, however, was completed only as far as Gowanbridge, and trains were operated only as far as Kawatiri. The line was cut back to Glenhope during the Second World War and finally closed in 1955.
The main significance of Inangahua in railway terms was that it was the railhead from 1914 until the 1940s when the Buller Gorge section of the railway was finally completed, linking the isolated Westport Section to the national network. The township used to be larger when it was a NZED hub with staff housing. A transmission line was constructed through from Inangahua northwards over a number of years. Some of the houses remaining in the township date from the NZED era.
Inangahua remains in use today as a crossing loop and has its station building remaining on its original site. There is a sawmill adjacent.
