✨ Report on railway route exploration
47
With reference to the practicability of forming a railway from the Wangapeka Valley to Nelson, my acquaintance with the features of the country in and about Wangapeka, as far as the Blue Creek diggings, the Motueka Valley for nearly its whole length, and also with the country intervening between it and Nelson, enable me at once to state that a railway could be formed without any formidable difficulty, from Wangapeka to Nelson, that the average cost would not probably exceed £3,500 per mile, (possibly not £3,000) without including the purchase of land.
There would be a choice of routes, viz., one by way of Wai-iti Valley, over the range into, and down Motueka Valley to the Tadmor range, and over the Tadmor range into the Sherry and Wangapeka plains. Or instead of going into the Tadmor, proceeding further down the Motueka valley, to its junction with the Wangapeka, up which river a line could be taken to the Wangapeka plains.
Another and perhaps a preferable route would be from the Wangapeka plains, and down that river to its junction with the Motueka river, thence down the Motueka to the flat land at Lower Moutere, and round the shore of Blind Bay, or by the course roughly indicated by the road between Moutere and Nelson.
This last described line would also serve for opening the Batten coal district, should it prove to be of sufficient importance, as reported on by me last year.
I have, &c.,
JOHN BLACKETT,
Provincial Engineer.
PRINTED BY R. LUCAS, BRIDGE STREET, NELSON.
Nelson Provincial Gazette 1863, No 12
✨ LLM interpretation of page content
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Report on exploration of the inland route from the West Coast to Nelson
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🏘️ Provincial & Local GovernmentExploration, Road construction, West Coast, Nelson, Buller River, Infrastructure, Railways, Surveying, Wangapeka Valley, Motueka Valley
- John Blackett, Provincial Engineer