Taringamotu railway station



Taringamotu railway station was a station at Taringamotu on the North Island Main Trunk, in the Ruapehu District and Manawatū-Whanganui region, from Wellington, north of Taumarunui, south of Okahukura and above sea level.
Goods traffic was reported to have started by November 1902. A station master was appointed in 1911. In 1920 he was working over 12 hours a day.
The name was changed from Taringamutu to Taringamotu after Alexander Young had described it as an error in Parliament in 1913.
Electric lighting came about 1936.
Timber was the main traffic, transferring from the Taringamotu Tramway, but the station also handled other goods, such as 122 tons of fertilisers in 1926.
Passenger numbers rose rapidly until 1916, as shown in the table and graph below -
yearticketsseason ticketsstaffsourcestitles
19109931https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1910/I/2050RETURN No. 12. STATEMENT of Revenue and Expenditure of each Station for the Year ended 31st March, 1910
19111,7781https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1911/I/2497RETURN No. 12. STATEMENT of Revenue and Expenditure of each Station for the Year ended 31st March, 1911
19122,93181https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1912/II/2420RETURN No. 12. STATEMENT of Revenue and Expenditure of each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1912
19132,9041https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1913/I/3693RETURN No. 12. STATEMENT of Revenue and Expenditure of each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1913
19143,0351https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1914/I/2031RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1914
19153,3361https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1915/I/1638RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1915
19164,3474https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1916/I/1053RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1916
19174,1079https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1917/I/1123RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1917
19184,11011https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1918/I-II/1159RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1918
19193,33338https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1919/I/1231RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1919
19202,98229https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1920/I/1349RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1920
19212,92918https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1921/I-II/1452RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1921
19222,99856https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1922/I/1409RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1922
19232,52294https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1923/I-II/1321RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1923
19242,83688https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1924/I/2458RETURN No. 12. Statement of Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1924
19252,79437https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1925/I/1804RETURN No. 12. Statement of Traffic and Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1925
19262,47660https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1926/I/1930STATEMENT No. 18 Statement of Traffic and Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1926
192755915https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/parliamentary/appendix-to-the-journals-of-the-house-of-representatives/1927/I/2230STATEMENT No. 18 Statement of Traffic and Revenue for each Station for the Year ended 31 March 1927

Incidents

The line wasn't fenced until 1909. In October 1905 a letter from 22 Māori farmers between Taumarunui and Taringamotu complained of the agreement to do so being broken, saying, "Fifteen horses have been killed, eight cows, and five pigs".
In 1915 the Ongarue River undermined a bank and two engines and a van, which had been moving very slowly, were overturned. One fireman had a minor hand, or head, injury.
Two goods trains crashed in 1943, with slight injuries to drivers and firemen.
Floods and slips closed the line nearby on several occasions. In 2015 the wooden bridge over the Ongarue River was replaced in concrete and mass stabilisation was applied to the nearby embankment.