page_title: New Zealand Railways Department
section_title: Increasing competition and great depression
hierarchical_section_title: New Zealand Railways Department / History / Increasing competition and great depression
caption_attribution_description: English: J 1211 being serviced before departure from Napier
context_page_description: The New Zealand Railways Department, NZR or NZGR and often known as the "Railways", was a government department charged with owning and maintaining New Zealand's railway infrastructure and operating the railway system. The Department was created in 1880 and was corporatised on 1 April 1982 into the New Zealand Railways Corporation. Originally, railway construction and operation took place under the auspices of the former provincial governments and some private railways, before all of the provincial operations came under the central Public Works Department. The role of operating the rail network was subsequently separated from that of the network's construction. From 1895 to 1993 there was a responsible Minister, the Minister of Railways. He was often also the Minister of Public Works.
  Apart from two experiments with independent boards, NZR remained under direct ministerial control for most of its history.
context_section_description: In 1920 the 3,000-mile (4,800 km) milestone of open railway lines was reached and 15 million passengers were carried by the department. The first of the now iconic railway houses were prefabricated in a factory in Frankton for NZR staff. However, this scheme was shut down in 1929 as it was considered improper for a government department to compete with private builders.
  The Otira Tunnel was completed in 1923, heralding the completion of the Midland Line in the South Island. The tunnel included the first section of railway electrification in New Zealand and its first electric locomotives, the original EO class. The section was electrified at 1,500 V DC, due to the steep grade in the tunnel, and included its own hydro-electric power station. The second section to be electrified by the department was the Lyttelton Line in Christchurch, completed in 1929, at the same voltage and current. This again saw English Electric supply locomotives, the EC class.
  In the same year, Gordon Coates became the Minister of Railways. Coates was an ambitious politician who had an almost "religious zeal" for his portfolio. During the summer of 1923, he spent the entire parliamentary recess inspecting the department's operations. The following year, he put forward a "Programme of Improvements and New Works'".
  Coates scheme proposed spending £8 million over 8 years. This was later expanded to £10 million over 10 years. The programme included:
  The Auckland–Westfield deviation of the North Island Main Trunk;
  New marshalling yards at Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch;
  The Milson Deviation of the North Island Main Trunk through Palmerston North;
  The Rimutaka Tunnel under the Rimutaka Ranges in Wellington;
  The Tawa Flat deviation of the North Island Main Trunk out of Wellington;
  Electric lighting;
  New locomotive facilities and
  New signalling systems.
  An independent commission, led by Sir Sam Fay and Sir Vincent Raven produced a report known as the "Fay Raven Report" which gave qualified approval to Coates' programme. The reports only significant change was the proposal of a Cook Strait train ferry service between Wellington and Picton, to link the two systems up. Coates went on to become Prime Minister in 1925, an office he held until 1928 when he was defeated at the general election of that year. While the Westfield and Tawa Flat deviations proceeded, the Milson deviation and Rimutaka Tunnel projects remained stalled. The onset of the Great Depression from late 1929 saw these projects scaled back or abandoned. The Westfield deviation was completed in 1930 and the Tawa deviation proceeded at a snail's pace. A number of new lines under construction were casualties, including the Rotorua-Taupo line, approved in July 1928 but abandoned almost a year later due to the depression. An exception was the Stratford–Okahukura Line, finished in 1933.
  However, there was criticism that maintenance was being neglected. In the Liberals last year of office in 1912, 140 miles (230 km) of line had been relaid, but that was reduced to 118 in 1913, 104 in 1914, 81 in 1924 and 68 in 1925, during the Reform Government's years.
  Once again, growing traffic requirements led to the introduction of a new type of locomotive, the ill-fated G class Garratt locomotives in 1928. Three of the locomotives were introduced for operation on the North Island Main Trunk. They were not well suited to New Zealand conditions: they had overly complex valve gear, were too hot for crews manning them and too powerful for the wagons they were hauling. The failure of this class lead to the introduction of the K class in 1932.
caption: The J class also appeared in 1939. This locomotive, J1211, survived for preservation.
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