Stillwater Ngakawau Line [19]: Seddonville Branch & maps completed

Having finished drawing the maps of this route here are some maps of different areas to finish this series of posts. Some of these have minor errors in them that have been corrected in the maps but I haven't regenerated these images.

 This one is specifically of the Charming Creek Mine tramway which is now a walkway but it also shows part of the Stockton Railway that was built for coal mining, and to its left the current aerial cableway that carries the coal down from Stockton at the present time.

 This is of the Denniston Plateau and it shows the aerial cableway that operated for 15 years as well as the roperoads and the major mines of the area.

 This one shows the area around Waimangaroa including the Koranui Incline and the Denniston road and bridle track, also the Denniston Incline.

 This shows the full Stockton railway, some of the haulage roads for the mines in the area, the Millerton incline haulage roads etc.

 Here we can see the route of the Stockton railway and the aerial cableway. At the bottom edge we can see the township of Millerton.

 This is detail of Millerton and the incline and haulage tramways (rope roads).

This is Ngakawau, the terminus of the Stillwater Ngakawau Line. This started out as a station 2/3rds of the distance from Westport to Seddonville (the distance shown is the distance on the Seddonville Branch) but has become now the end of the SNL. The bridge that until 1981 took the line across the Ngakawau River to Seddonville can be seen. This was built and used as a combined road and rail bridge until some time in the 1930s. Where the line ends is where the Charming Creek walkway starts. We can also see where the Stockton tramway started and went through a tunnel as it climbed up the hill. Unlike the incline at Millerton which was a rope road with an endless cable that hauled the coal skips down to the Granity station, the Stockton tramway was a normal rail line (narrow gauge) hauled by electric locomotives with overhead collection poles. It was used until the 1950s when the aerial cableway was put in.