More Info →Whakarongo station, with Colin Chaplin on his jigger

Description

Two railway cottages are visible on the left. The Associated Bottlers Company (ABC) depot is on the right. The ABC was a subsidiary of New Zealand Breweries and operated a beer bottle recycling depot in the good yards. After sorting, the bottle wagons were shunted daily to Palmerston North, with most redirected to Auckland. By 1983, the ABC closed its Whakarongo facility, which also rendered the goods yard redundant. Whakarongo station was officially declared 'closed to traffic' on 30 October 1983.
Colin and Margaret Chaplin, together with their two children, moved into one of the railway cottages in January 1959. Colin was employed as Head Ganger for this section of line, maintaining a 7.5 mile section fo track between Terrace End Cemetery to half a mile beyond Ashhurst station. While at Whakarongo, he gained his first motor-driven jigger. Colin Chaplin retired in 1974.
For further information about the history of the railway in Whakarongo, see Val Burr, A Time of Transition: Whakarongo School & District Twelve Decades On (1999).

Identification

Object type

Image

Identifier

2014N_Wh24_009192

Date

1971 to 1974

Digitisation id

2014N_Wh24_009192

Format

B&W negative

Held In

"Coolstore"