Marton New Plymouth Line [1A]: Whanganui-Castlecliff 1

I am currently looking to bring the maps from Marton to Westmere, the first 50 km of the MNPL, to a conclusion in the next week or so. Probably these will be released as a full set of maps, along with the existing diagrams of the rest of Volume 4. But there may not be a PDF produced at this stage. I am not ruling out an interim PDF, but ideally I still need to find a 1974 era working timetable to be able to include the metric distances for as many stations as possible without reliance on the suspect Quail Atlas distances. Putting in km pegs and bridge numbers without otherwise updating is a quick solution on the existing diagrams and I may allow extra time to achieve just that. I do have all the resources needed to put in WNPL distances and those will be shown along with anything else I can get from official sources.

Here are some recent screen captures:

 Castlecliff station (the sidings have not been adjusted to fit the aerial photo, as is commonly necessary when aerial photos replace diagrams)

 A zoom out to take in the general area of Castlecliff with the various wharf sheds and sidings.

 The area of what used to be Wanganui and in the days of the separate Castlecliff railway, the Town station at the beginning of their line. The Castlecliff line was re-routed several times.

 A look at how things have changed at Aramoho in the last few years. The points used to be right at the end of the bridge, with the frog on the far side, and the road crossing being over the four closer rails. This arrangement which was put in place about thirty years ago has been abandoned around 2014 in favour of having the entire set of points located on the west side of the road. This meaning the curves are sharper but making it easier to maintain the points.

General overview of Aramoho and this one shows the fertiliser factory to the north which had its sidings, some of the track still in place at the present.

Another view of Aramoho Junction that attempts to depict the back leg of the triangle. For the vast majority of its existence this leg did not actually follow the route that I have shown, but until I can get aerial photos of Aramoho in any time frame it is not going to be possible to be totally accurate. However the above will be altered in some way.

Right now I am looking at the Castlecliff line as I do have some aerial photos from 1967 covering most of it although the detail is not too sharp but I do hope with the help from Whites Aviation as well to be able to get that sorted out next week.