This week development continues on the MSL maps for Greater Christchurch. It has been determined that the maps for Greater Christchurch will cover four directions from the centre of the city, namely:
- Main South Line to Lyttelton
- Main South Line to Rolleston
- Main North Line to Rangiora
- Hornby Industrial Line to Lincoln
Work is ongoing to add all of the covered areas to the map, particularly those outside the Christchurch City aerial layer coverage. This means that for Templeton-Rolleston, Prebbleton-Lincoln and Kaiapoi-Rangiora, additional high resolution aerial photo layers have had to be sourced and these are being added to the Christchurch project.
In respect of Lyttelton-Rolleston we have continued working on the historical map tile mosaics this week, focusing particularly on the mosaic project that covers the section from Heathcote to Christchurch. Aerial photos from official NZR surveys from the 1970s have made up most of what has been put into the mosaics this week. We are still working on this project with a few more layers to be added; we have the following at the moment:
- Heathcote has no official station survey, but a third party survey from 1970 and the NZR corridor survey from 1985 have proved useful.
- Ferrymead is covered by third party surveys from 1958, 1970 and 1984 (part), and by the NZR corridor survey from 1985 (part).
- Woolston has the NZR station surveys for 1974 and 1981, and third party for 1950. Oddly, we can't find the NZR corridor survey images (1985) for this station.
- Linwood and Opawa are covered by NZR station survey for 1970, by part of the NZR 1981 station survey, and partly by the 1985 NZR corridor survey (some images in this series seem to be missing - 8380-B-x in particular)
- Waltham by 1940, 1950 and 1961 third party, 1970 and 1981 NZR station, 1985 NZR corridor.
- Christchurch by the same range as shown above for Waltham. There is a possibility of adding a mid 1990s survey as well in order to show the major changes in the yard site at that time.
All of the area from Christchurch through to Opawa was covered in one single survey with three runs, which also covers Middleton and Addington (Survey No. 2345 of 1970). After that, we discovered a NZR survey for Woolston (2376 of 1974) which we had not known about previously. Also the NZR corridor survey of 1985 which started from Lyttelton has added good coverage of part of Ferrymead, but the part of this survey that should cover Woolston appears to be missing (Survey 8380, of which run B appears to be missing).The mosaic project for dealing with this section is one of the largest we have worked on for a while, and the down time earlier in the week to fit a larger SSD giving more virtual memory space for the Gimp tile cache has been definitely worthwhile except that we hope the file which ballooned by 10 GB in one generation will not grow as fast in the next few days while we finish adding layers.
The next three images are of Ferrymead Heritage Park site over a 27 year period starting from its early days and carrying through to about the time I first became involved with the Ferrymead Railway.
Ferrymead 1958. It was then just a dairy farm. Interest was developing around that time, and the 100th anniversary of the opening, in 1963, was the catalyst for the development of the present day park complex. Note in particular the shape of Truscotts Road, with its curious dogleg that went inside the park site and came out again through what is now Gate A.
Ferrymead 1970. Development of the site advanced considerably in the second half of the 1960s. By this time Truscotts Road had been straightened to bypass the park boundary at Gate A. A lot of filling and construction work is happening across the site. Truscotts Road at this time was still the main access for the Heathcote County rubbish dump at Wood Hill.
Ferrymead 1985, about the time I first became involved. The main village site has been heavily developed with numerous buildings in place, the aeronautical society's Viscount and one of their buildings is up, the railway's workshop, running shed and carriage/electric shed are in place, along with some of the buildings in the Ferrymead Trust storage and workshop site on the far side of the railway line. It was around this time that the Heathcote County dump was closed to the public, but was still open for approved commercial loads.
At the moment we don't have complete coverage of the other end of Ferrymead throughout the same period but this will be added to the mosaics shortly.
