page_title: Ross Branch
section_title: Operation
hierarchical_section_title: Ross Branch / Operation
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Taramakau road rail bridge opening
context_page_description: The Ross Branch, officially known as the Hokitika Line since 2011, and previously as the Hokitika Industrial Line, is a branch line railway that forms part of New Zealand's national rail network. It is located in the Westland District of the South Island's West Coast region and opened to Hokitika in 1893. A further extension to Ross operated from 1909 until 1980.
context_section_description: Although sometimes considered to be part of the Midland Line, the Ross Branch was almost wholly operated as a separate route from Greymouth. The 1906 timetable showed 2 or 3 passenger trains a day.  Locomotive depots were established in both Ross and Hokitika, and when the Otira Tunnel linking the West Coast to Canterbury opened in 1923, the section to Hokitika began to increase in importance.  Carriages from the Christchurch-Greymouth express were attached to mixed trains and conveyed to Hokitika while the extension to Ross operated more like a local line with two mixed trains daily.  The introduction of small Leyland diesel railbuses in August 1936 to convey copies of the Christchurch Press newspaper to the West Coast led to the establishment of a direct service between Christchurch and Hokitika, as well as local services between Hokitika and Greymouth and briefly Reefton.  By the early 1940s, the Vulcan railcars had replaced the Leylands and they ran all the way through from Christchurch to Ross, operating twice daily, with a Greymouth-Hokitika return service at mid-day, Monday to Friday. In 1955, the 88 seater railcars entered service in New Zealand, and on 20 February 1956, they began operating the services from Christchurch to Ross via Greymouth, significantly reducing the use of the Vulcans.  They were augmented by two daily mixed trains to Ross, and these services lasted until 11 September 1967. The railcars operated for a few years more, but as of 9 October 1972, they ceased to run past Greymouth, removing the final passenger service on the line.
  In the early years of the line, timber was the dominant traffic from Ross, and in the 1920s, there was some pressure to operate NZR rolling stock on the Stuart and Chapman Ltd tramway, but this came to nothing and the tramway used private rolling stock until its closure in 1959.  As the forests were felled, they were not replaced, and agriculture grew in importance, with agricultural lime and fertiliser railed in and livestock railed out; Ross served as the loading point for cattle driven up from southern Westland. By the 1970s, the line beyond Hokitika was operating uneconomically, and closure came in 1980.  The combined road/rail bridge south of Hokitika, known as the "longest xylophone in the world" in New Zealand railfan jargon due to the rattling its planks made, required urgent repairs but it was decided that the cost outweighed the benefits due to the insignificance of the line.  Road traffic was diverted to another bridge upstream and the line from Hokitika to Ross closed on 24 November 1980.  
  This made the closure of the Ross section somewhat remarkable as its passenger service had ceased only eight years earlier; most rural New Zealand branches lost their passenger service at least two or three decades before the entire line was closed.
  Presently, the Hokitika Branch operates quietly but appears to have a secure future.  Every weekday, a freight train operates from Greymouth to Hokitika in the morning and returns in the evening.  It takes fifty minutes to run each way, operates only when required between June and August, and no trains run on weekends.  The branch's primary customer is the Westland Milk Products plant based in Hokitika, and trains are typically operated by diesel locomotives of the DBR or DC classes.  In the days of steam locomotives, members of the A and Aᴮ had been based in Ross, and when the line was dieselised in May 1969, DJ class diesels became the primary motive power until the arrival of the DBRs and DCs, though for a few years in the 1970s, all trains had to be operated by DSC class shunter locomotives before the Taramakau River bridge was repaired and upgraded. The bridge closed to road traffic on Sunday 22 July 2018, when a $25m road bridge opened.
caption: Taramakau road/rail bridge opening
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