Good morning. Following from last time we are working on mosaics for Booth's Siding at Carterton, the fertiliser depot near Carterton, Tui Dairy Factory at Pahiatua, Mauriceville, Ngawaparua Bridge and the ballast siding there, and a several extra stations like Eketahuna and Mangatainoka. At the moment, LDS does not have a download limit; probably because of the COVID-19 lockdown, we were able to download 12 GB in one go to get the layers we needed for parts of the mosaics. Usually there is a 3.5 GB limit on downloads and anything as big as 12 GB would have to be couriered out for a fee.
We did also mention Wright Stephenson's siding at Pahiatua as shown on the Quail Atlas. Mainly because there is not any historical aerial imagery at present before 1974 for this area, we have been unable to confirm the details of that siding, and it will not be shown on the maps. There was a quarry nearby but it is unlikely this has any relationship to WS. Wrightsons took over WFCA so it is possible that this siding was originally put in for WFCA.
Some way back we talked about the use of Survey 570 which is from 1951 and contains additional detail in a number of historical areas to do with the Wairarapa Line. There has been a delay in getting hold of these images due to the COVID-19 situation and lockdown. Whilst NZ is easing towards a lower level of restriction, it is entirely possible that Linz may have to curtail or freeze some of its activities due to the economic impact which means we may not be able to gain access to that survey for the present. Therefore the situation we put in place of using other images to fill in especially up the Western Hutt section, seems to be the best option for the present to get the maps in that area completed.
The remaining mosaics should take only a couple of days more to complete and we will then have everything we need to complete the maps. We are presently working south from Eketahuna back to Cross Creek fixing the alignments of the various elements of the base maps, before we start drawing in the details of all the stations and sidings from Cross Creek to Woodville, which is basically what is needed to complete the rest of the maps, and which as describe previously, we hope to have completed for release at the end of this month.
This Volume 6 development process has been a bit more drawn out than was originally planned and we are certainly keen to get to the next volume. As previously outlined with the change in schedule, Volume 4 at Basic level will be the next volume to be worked on, and as it was nearly complete when it was last being worked on a year or two back, it shouldn't take more than a week or two to finish the Basic maps and produce them.
As noted above we are expecting the Retrolens project may well end up being paused for a while as it is likely to become a reduced priority in the economic situation for New Zealand and this could have an impact on the development of the maps to Intermediate and Comprehensive levels but we shall have to see what is happening when we come back to that level of development later this year and on into 2021 and 2022 according to our expected schedule.
