Nelson Provincial Gazette – 1868 – No. 20

Page 93

✨ Railway construction estimates

may be taken as an average of the side cuttings, for
one-third of the length of the line in the Buller valley,
below the Devil's Grip—(see fig. 2). It must be
observed that there are places where the cross sections
would be less favorable than is shown in figure, while
on the other hand there are many places where they
would be more favorable, so that on the whole the
sketch may be taken, excluding the retaining wall, as
a fair average, as far as my judgment goes. The pitched
facing to the embankment would be necessary in some
cases where the natural slope terminates close to the
edge of the river.

How line should 140. I may further add that, as regards the site of
enter Nelson. the station for Nelson, and the way the line should
Stations. enter the town, I am of opinion that the passenger
station should be at the bottom of Hardy-street, and
the coal station at the port, and I prefer the line
coming by Jenkins's Hill than by Thompson's Run.

Locomotive en- 141. There are strong objections to a locomotive
gines should not engine crossing the Port road on a level, and then
cross the port running parallel to the same as one coming by way
road. of Jenkins's Hill, and would have the dangerous and in-
convenient, and in consequence I propose the line
shall not be used by locomotives nearer to the Port
than Saltwater bridge. From thence coal trains are
to be taken to the Port by horse-power.

Line by Thomp- 142. A line entering Nelson by Thompson's Run,
son's run has and having its terminus near to Saltwater bridge,
some disadvan- would be equally as expensive as one coming by way
tages. of the Buller, below the Devil's Grip, as follows:—
vantage of cutting off all convenient and safe com-
munication with the water frontage at the port. It
would be a great interruption to the trade at the
Port, to have a locomotive plying along the whole
water frontage, and would be very dangerous to the
general public.

Line by Thomp- 143. In order, however, to keep a moderate check
son's run may be on demands for compensation from owners of private
allowed under property through which the line would pass, if taken
certain difficul- by Jenkins's Hill, I suggest the propriety of leaving
ties. the Company the right of constructing the line via
Thompson's Run, if they fail in making arrangements
terms with the owners of land on the line by Jenkins's
Hill.

APPROXIMATE ESTIMATE FOR ONE MILE OF RAIL-
WAY, EXCLUSIVE OF LARGE BRIDGES AND OF ALL
WORKS IN THE VALLEY OF THE BULLER.

Estimate for 144. The gauge being 3ft. 6in.:—
one mile, with- £ s. d.
out bridges, when Clearing 10 acres of bush, at £6... ... 60 0 0
the gauge is
3 feet 6 inches. Average excavation, 4000 cubic yards,
at 1s. 3d... ... ... ... 250 0 0
Fencing ... ... ... ... 168 0 0
Draining ... ... ... ... 40 0 0
Two level crossings, complete ... ... 80 0 0
Accommodation gates ... ... 30 0 0
Ballasting, 2077 cubic yards, at 2s. ... 207 14 0
Sleepers, 1760 at 2s. 3d. ... ... 198 0 0
Rails, 85 tons, at £11 ... ... 726 0 0
Fish-joints and spikes ... ... 30 0 0
Plate-laying, 1760 lineal yards, at 2s. ... 176 0 0

Total ... ... ... £1965 14 0

Estimate for 145. The gauge being 4 feet 8½ inches:—
one mile when £ s. d.
the gauge is Clearing 10 acres of bush, at £6... ... 60 0 0
4 feet 8½ inches. Excavations, 4600 cubic yards, at 1s. 3d. 287 10 0
Fencing ... ... ... ... 168 0 0
Draining ... ... ... ... 40 0 0
Two level crossings, complete ... ... 80 0 0

Carried forward... £

Brought forward... £
Accommodation gates ... ... 30 0 0
Ballasting, 2444 cubic yards, at 2s. ... 244 8 0
Sleepers, 1760, at 2s. 6d... ... 220 0 0
Rails, 85 tons, at £11 ... ... 925 0 0
Fish-joints and spikes ... ... 35 0 0
Plate-laying, 1760 lineal yards, at 2s. ... 176 0 0

Total ... ... £2265 18 0

The gauge being 5 feet 3 inches:—
£ s. d.
Clearing 10 acres of bush, at £6... ... 60 0 0
Excavations, 5290 cubic yards, at 1s. 3d. 331 2 6
Fencing ... ... ... ... 168 0 0
Draining ... ... ... ... 40 0 0
Two level crossings, complete ... ... 80 0 0
Accommodation gates ... ... 30 0 0
Ballasting, 2628 cubic yards, at 2s. ... 262 16 0
Sleepers, 1760, at 2s. 9d... ... 242 0 0
Rails, 95 tons, at £11 ... ... 1045 0 0
Fish-joints, and spikes ... ... 40 0 0
Plate-laying, 1760 lineal yards, at 2s. ... 176 0 0

Total ... ... £2474 18 6

To each of these estimates for one mile of
railway we must add when the line is in the Valley
of the Buller, below the Devil's Grip, as follows:—
For 3 feet 6 inch gauge, 15,580 cubic
yards of excavation, at 3s. = £2337
— £250 is... ... ... £2440 8s. 6d.
For 4 feet 8½ inch gauge, 18,186 cubic
yards of excavation, at 3s. = £2727 18s.
— £287 10s. = ... ... £2440 8s. 6d.
For 5 feet 3 inch gauge, 20,340 cubic
yards of excavation, at 3s. = £3051
— £331 2s. 6d. = ... ... £2719 17s. 6d.
We then arrive at the estimates of the entire line
as follows, and the branch to Westport.
Estimate of trunk line from Nelson to Cobden;
gauge, 3 feet 6 inches.
£ s. d.
125 miles of Railway, no part of which
is in the Valley of the Buller, below
the Devil's Grip, at £1965 14s. 0d.
per mile ... ... ... 245,610 10 0
55 miles of Railway, the whole of which
is in the Valley of the Buller, below
the Devil's Grip, at £4052 14s. 0d.
per mile ... ... ... 222,898 10 0
Small Bridges and Culverts, less than
30 feet span, about 6400 feet, at £4 25,000 0 0
Large Rivers. £ £
Wairoa ... ... 450 feet...at 16... 7,200
Eighty-eight... 80 ... do. ... 1,280
Wai-iti ... ... 200 ... do. ... 3,200
Kerr's ... ... 40 ... do. ... 640
Hope ... ... 80 ... do. ... 1,280
Granite ... ... 40 ... do. ... 640
Owen ... ... 120 ... do. ... 1,920
Matiri ... ... 300 ... do. ... 4,800
Newton ... ... 120 ... do. ... 1,920
Buller ... ... 300 ... do. ... 4,800
Dee ... ... 100 ... do. ... 1,600
Inangahua... ... 200 ... do. ... 3,200
Curtis' ... ... 120 ... do. ... 1,920
Greenfield's ... 150 ... do. ... 2,400
Sharp's ... ... 100 ... do. ... 1,600
Adams' ... ... 50 ... do. ... 800
Little Grey ... 40 ... do. ... 640
Wood's ... ... 50 ... do. ... 800
Carried forward

PDF — Nelson Provincial Gazette 1868, No 20

The Nelson Provincial Council Buildings (depicted) were constructed beginning with the laying of the foundation stone on 26 August 1859, with the first Council meeting held there on 30 April 1861.

The buildings served Nelson for over a century before being demolished on 12 September 1969.

✨ LLM interpretation of page content

🏗️ Report on proposed Nelson and West Coast railway construction and gauge specifications (continued from previous page)

Domain🏗️ Infrastructure & Public Works
KeywordsRailway construction, Nelson, West Coast, Gauge, Railway engineering, Technical report, Cost estimates

As the Gazette has been published for more than 185 years, copyright status depends on the publication date of each issue:

1840–1925 (Public Domain): Issues of the New Zealand Gazette and Provincial Gazettes from this period are in the public domain, as the term of Crown copyright (100 years) has expired. Mechanical reproductions (e.g., scanned PDFs) of these public domain documents do not attract new copyright.
1926–1999 (Crown Copyright): Issues from this period remain subject to Crown copyright. Usage of these issues in this project is "Fair Dealing" for research purposes and consistent with the spirit of the open-access principles championed by NZGOAL, ie, "The default licensing position under ... NZGOAL is the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence ... [t]o the greatest extent possible, agencies should apply this licence to copyright material on their websites"
2000–Present (CC-BY 3.0 NZ): Gazette issues published on gazette.govt.nz are Crown copyright but are explicitly licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 New Zealand licence (CC-BY 3.0 NZ). This project redistributes this content in accordance with those terms.

Nothing in this project is intended to infringe copyright, trademark law or personal privacy. Please contact me immediately if you have any concerns.

Third-Party Content

Where third-party content (e.g., notices submitted by external organisations) is identified within the Gazette, users should satisfy themselves regarding the copyright status of that specific content, as it may be subject to different ownership terms than the Gazette itself.

Sources and Attribution

NZ Gazette Sources

The primary sources for the issues of the NZ Gazette indexed by this project are:

New Zealand Gazette Archive, provided by Victoria University Library, copyright 2008 LexisNexis NZ Limited, Crown Copyright of New Zealand Gazette Office
- Issues from 1841-2008, including the New Munster, New Ulster, and Provincial Gazettes
New Zealand Gazettes by New Zealand Legal Information Institute (note: "NZLII is not the copyright owner in the source documents published on NZLII")
- Issues from 1913-1999
Gazette.govt.nz, Crown copyright / licensed by the Department of Internal Affairs under CC-BY 3.0 NZ
- Issues from 2000-2017

Additional Sources

Wellington City Recollect have made available a comprehensive and excellent-quality scan of the Wellington Provincial Gazette which was used to fill in a number of issues missing from Victoria University's Gazette Archive; in particular, all 1856 issues, issues 22-34 for 1864 and issues 9-19 for 1870.
27 issues of The New Zealand Advertiser and Bay of Islands Gazette (1840) were sourced from Papers Past (public domain).
Gazette Extraordinary No. 1 (1840), held at the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. Imaged by Luke Howison at the National Library reading rooms; PDF released into the public domain.

PDF Icon

The PDF PDF Icon was made by Good Ware, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Masthead

The logo in the header is an edited version of “Winning Coat of Arms Competition Entry, 1908” by Archives New Zealand, CC BY 2.0 (found via Wikipedia).

Who made this?

I'm Luke Howison, a freelance web developer with an interest in genealogy. I have created several websites for genealogical research, such as NZ Ancestor Search Helper.

New Zealand Gazette Index