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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 12, Issue 6 (September 1, 1937.)

Wellington Foreshore — The Scene of the Ideal Transport Wedding — Where the Iron Trail Meets the Trackless Waters

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Wellington Foreshore
The Scene of the Ideal Transport Wedding
Where the Iron Trail Meets the Trackless Waters
.

Early Wharves, Te Aro, about 1850.

Early Wharves, Te Aro, about 1850.

Making the railways made New Zealand, and the process was perfected by our harbours. It is probable that we are unique in our many examples of the ideal marriage between the two great transport systems, the iron lines of the permanent way, and the charted courses of the open sea.

There is a legendary atmosphere about lines of busy wharves. Great cranes creak and swine as they drop huge crates into the waiting railway trucks. Exotic names from foreign countries are stencilled in black and colours on massive square cases, and the watcher is reminded of the vast overseas world that ministers to New Zealand's needs. Yet it must be remembered that motor cars and Worcester sauce, Arabian dates and English porcelain, French perfumes and Spanish olives, would not be pouring out of those great ocean carriers if it were not for the serried lines of railway trucks that stand on the steel rails running up and down each wharf. They have brought from our farm lands, butter, sheepskins, cheese, meat, wool and other products, to exchange for the varied goods that reach us from the uttermost ends of the earth.

The long iron-jointed serpent of the goods train is the corollary of the handsome cargo steamer In an island country such as ours, their union is vital to our well-being.

There is a curious resemblance between a busy harbour and a large railway station. I remember Robert Blatchford's description of the London junction as seen from a signal box: “Lines curling all round; goods trains, fast trains, slow trains, stray engines; backing, filling, tacking, and running before the wind in all directions; bells ringing, whistles blowing, steam hissing, wires creaking, hoarse voices wheezing through mouthpieces …” and so on.

From one of Wellington's nearby hills, or a lofty building, the massed lines of wharves bear very much the same appearance. Grimy coal barges, spick and span oil tankers, imposing passenger liners, fussy tug boats, darting ferry steamers, portly cargo boats, and hosts of smaller puffing, busy, slick and slow vessels, seem to be turning, twisting, speeding and stopping, to miss each other by hairbreadths.

The great station is the haven of every type and description of the land liners coming and going on their journeys, and the port is the terminus of the sea locomotives of all tonnages and every variety of horse power.

When the two are interwoven as they are in Wellington, the high romance of transport becomes a visible poetry, a shining spectacle of the complex modern tracery of human affairs.

As the geography books tell us, New Zealand is rich in great harbours, and to a remarkable number of these the words of Captain Herd in the Nautical Almanac of 1832 are applicable: “Here all the navies of Europe might ride in perfect security.”

Many of our finest stretches of landlocked waters are separated from our productive regions by mighty mountain chains, as in the far south of the South Island.

Naturally, there are others which have become great sea emporia of trade, reminding us of the dear old gentleman who pointed out to James Branch Cabell how wonderful it was that all the great seaport cities had been provided with such excellent harbours.

I am choosing the harbour of the capital city for the purposes of this article which is intended to show that the wedding between sea and land transport in New Zealand is simply a fine expression of the crystal clear common sense we own as part of our British heritage.

When the first flock of English colonists went to Virginia, they found a land that was new in nearly every particular. In every essential it differed widely from the world they had left. West of Chesapeake Bay lay only endless land and forest for thousands of miles. In New Zealand, however, one remembered condition among a host of familiars was this: there was no place that was not within easy reach of their beloved sea. Thus it was logical and inevitable that the maritime tradition of a thousand years would be repeated in this England of the southern seas.

The history of the port of Wellington is a phase of this racial story well worth the telling.

It is strange to recall that Captain Cook looked in during his voyage in 1770, and casually dismissed the place as an “inlet which lies to the north, inclining to the west and seems sheltered from all winds.” I would like to see him walking down Willis Street now in a bad northerly!

The next visit by a European was in 1826, more than fifty years after, by Captains Herd and Barrett, and in some way or other the place got christened Port Nicholson after the harbourmaster of Sydney. However, that lynx-eyed genius, Colonel Wakefield, had noticed the dazzling description of this faraway harbour, and he arrived in 1839 on the famous ship Tory.

As they sailed into this new imposing inland sea, dreams already bright took on a rosier hue. I wonder though if the wildest imaginings of those ecstatic voyagers would ever form the panorama now presented by the towering buildings and the forest of shipping that greet the eye as an incoming steamer makes its way to anchorage?

We show a picture of the harbour as it was in 1840. Lyall Bay had its small lagoon, and Burnham Water was page 10
Queen's Whart, Wellington, 1862–63.

Queen's Whart, Wellington, 1862–63.

a substantial lake in the middle of Miramar peninsula. Both of these were to disappear later when the land rose eight feet and then dropped three, leaving as it were, a substantial profit. In the background of the picture is the bush filled Hutt Valley where “Britannia,” the first Wellington settlement, was to be founded on Petone beach.

It is quaint to recall that when “Britannia” had been forsaken for the Te Aro Flat, the first regular ship on the broad waters of Port Nicholson was the ferry Adelaide. When she could not run, the Wellington inhabitants had to go without their “New Zealand Gazette,” which was still being published at Petone on Saturday nights.

As the settlement grew to sizeable dimensions a mosquito fleet came quickly into being, and little ships for the coastal trade began to appear. A wharf became a necessity, and the first was made by Mr. J. H. Wallace. A big hogshead case was taken out as far as possible, filled with stones and sunk as deeply as could be managed.

(After a sketch by T. Allom.) An artist's impression of early Wellington Harbour. (Whanganui-a-Tara, the great Harbour of Tara, 1839.)

(After a sketch by T. Allom.)
An artist's impression of early Wellington Harbour. (Whanganui-a-Tara, the great Harbour of Tara, 1839.)

Wooden trestles topped by long logs made the rest of it. More ambitious ventures followed, one structure requiring the formation of a company with a capital of £250 in £2 shares. This was able to accommodate vessels right up to forty tons.

Another picture shows that in quite a little time the water front was laced with numerous little piers all privately owned, and of varying efficiency.

Then came the approach to the Sixties. Wellington in 1856 had a population of nearly 4,000, and a historian recalls its unique feature, “almost every colonist was a man of means and could stand a siege.” They were pioneers in the true sense. They were not content with slow and cautious growth, and it was universally agreed that the times of the little private wharf had gone.

To get the right perspective, remember that away down south the Canterbury handful of families was considering the raising of a quarter of a million of money to build a railway and bore the Lyttelton tunnel. The Wellington settlers made their appeal to the Provincial Government, and the proudly named Queen's Wharf was built. For this deep water structure heart of totara and heart of rimu were used, brought all the way from Foxton, and logged and squared there before shipping. The first pile was driven on 27th April, and down in Canterbury the first sod of the Lyttelton tunnel excavation had been delved in the June of the year before.

Our next picture shows this structure, which cost over £15,000. It was the pride of the citizens. But again, “Time marches on.” The alluring prospect of quicker communication with the Homeland via Panama Isthmus became an actuality when the Ruahine and a trio of sister ships of 1,500 tons started to run. The Queen's Wharf was doubled in size, the contract being let in the year in which the Australian Commissioners decided that Wellington should be the capital city of New Zealand. By 1876 the Wellington Chamber of Commerce was able to report: “The increase of trade to this port is fulfilling that which has been long felt, that Wellington is the natural centre of communication for both Islands.”

About this time, too, the red funnels of the Union Steam Ship Company began to appear in the harbour, for distant Dunedin was demonstrating its possession of maritime genius.

More important than all was the fact that, on 14th April, a railway had been opened from Pipitea Point, just about where Davis Street to-day meets Thorndon Quay. The produce of the Hutt Valley now came easily to the growing city, and port and harbour and railway started to develop mutually, page 11
(Rly. Publicity photo.) A modern overseas vessel, the “New Zealand Star,” at Wellington.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
A modern overseas vessel, the “New Zealand Star,” at Wellington.

a process which has endured to this day.

The new Wellington Station was opened on 1st November, 1880, marking also the opening of the gigantic achievement, the railway over the lofty Rimutaka Ranges giving an outlet to the rich Wairarapa District.

Just across Waterloo Quay from the station building was something new; this was the Railway Wharf, the only rival to the Queen's Wharf on the whole harbour frontage.

The question of control of the harbour now became a vital issue. The debates make refreshing reading, and their standard was, I am afraid higher than much of our local body discussion to-day. With an insight that has its prophetic justification nowadays, the Hon. Colonel Whitmore said that “he was distinctly against the multiplication of local bodies,” and it took a long time and much thorough-going dialectic and investigation before the Government consented to the setting up of the Wellington Harbour Board.

But, all this time, the greatest romance of all was taking shape.

Wellington harbour is for practical purposes, a perfect natural haven. It contains 20,000 acres; its basin is almost circular; its waters are deep but not too deep for anchorage; the entrance is capacious and safe; the current in the entrance never exceeds two knots; and lastly, the tidal rise and fall is negligible.

But the work of human hands and brains have worked further wonders. The land frontage strip for about three miles, has, by to-day crept out into the sea in some places as far as twenty-five chains. In all, nearly three hundred acres have been wrested from the ocean, and in that titanic achievement, all types and descriptions of New Zealand public organisations have taken part.

Consider what it all means. The actual City of London is a mile square. In this faraway “neck of the woods,” a handful of people have retrieved from the sea, an area equal to half the metropolis of their Homeland. Where seagulls breasted the shining waters,
(Rly. Publicity photo.) “Where the iron trail meets the trackless waters”—a present day scene on Wellington wharves.

(Rly. Publicity photo.)
“Where the iron trail meets the trackless waters”—a present day scene on Wellington wharves.

and yachts danced upon the waves, there now stand serried ranks of tall buildings, and streets thronged with traffic.

An early picture shows one of the first reclamations with the Government Buildings standing, almost in danger of a high tide. The State administration of the time was responsible for that acquisition of a modest two acres, but prior to that a mighty effort had been made in front of Lambton Quay, and a whole twelve acres had been salvaged. This is the piece running from the Quay to Customhouse Quay and having as cross thoroughfares, Panama, Brandon, Johnston and Waring Taylor Streets.

It would baffle the imagination to conjure up Wellington City without that massive sector.

But all those past efforts of the City Corporation, the Oddfellows, the Foresters, the Provincial Government, the New Munster Government, are overshadowed by the great task just completed by the united activities of the Harbour Board and the Railway Department. By this last logical effort of mutual co-operation, a great piece of territory nearly seventy acres in extent, has been newly fabricated to remain for all time.

This work of human magic has done more than change the immemorial shores of Port Nicholson, although that is, in itself, an amazing transformation. The place would be a crossword puzzle now to old Rauparaha, page 12 page 13
(A. P. Godber collection) The old Wellington-Manawatu Railway Company's Running Shed, at Thorndon, Wellington.

(A. P. Godber collection)
The old Wellington-Manawatu Railway Company's Running Shed, at Thorndon, Wellington.

and that maker of golden speech, old Te Puni, would be lost for words as he searched for ancient landmarks. But, neither of those highly intelligent chieftains would be able to appreciate the full measure of the communal benefit from this supreme achievement.

As one result, nearly a thousand yards of high-grade shipping frontage have emerged as if by magic. The unique semi-circular basin of the Wellington Harbour, with its unbroken series of wharves, is increased by more than half a mile. This continuous line of modern facilities for the berthing of the greatest liners places Wellington among the great commercial harbours of the world.

The land, thus won from the waters, is treasure trove, assured of proper use for the good of New Zealand and New Zealanders.

Lastly, the opening of the new Wellington railway station has enabled a planned perfection of alliance between the two transport systems.

Our picture shows the tracery of lines which spray out from the intricate
a plan showing-day rail access to the wellington wharves.

a plan showing-day rail access to the wellington wharves.

station yard to the wharves. Every main wharf is fed on an easy and natural curve from the central nexus of railway lines. This has a meaning which can well be amplified. This factor helps Wellington to be a model of utility in the handling of both imports and exports. The piano from London, the motor car from Canada, the bundle of jute sacks from Bombay, the case of cinnamon from Ceylon, drop neatly and expeditiously into the waiting rail truck by the steamer side and depart without further handling for Marton, Greytown or Napier. The wool, sheepskins, tallow, butter and countless other production units we send overseas, are hoisted from the rail truck into the ship's hold without more ado.

Surely this co-ordination of organised enterprise represents a hopeful flowering of social wisdom.

A great public body and a great branch of the public service whose immediate objectives differ widely, are able to find common ground for the common good. There seems no reason why all men should not profit from this brilliant example of the value of co-operation.

I am sure that Colonel Wakefield if he could come back now, would be quick to discern the real foundation for the successful building he wrought in his dreams of the future. On that sunny day when the Tory passed Soames Island, and with his soldier's eye he noted its suitability for a fort, he might well have quoted Tennyson. He had probably read “Locksley Hall,” for it was written seven years before, and he might have whispered as he looked over the ship's side—

When I dipt into the future far as human eye could see; Saw the Vision of the world, and all the wonder that would be, Saw the heavens fill with commerce, argosies of magic sails, Pilots of the purple twilight, dropping down with costly bales.

He did say that Wellington would be a great emporium of interior trade and a magnificent centre for “the purposes of importation of foreign, and exportation to other countries of native produce.”

That other great visionary and seer, Sir Julius Vogel, who saw the railways as the great instrument for the settlement and advancement of New Zealand, would join with Wakefield in the delight at the fulfilment of their noblest dreams.

Both of them would, I am certain, find their greatest joy in the fact that this splendid achievement of the welding together of sea and land transport had been the mutual work of men, working together in the spirit of brotherhood which was the finest heritage of our forebears.

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