Palmerston North Central railway station

Palmerston North Central railway station
Railway Station and Yards, Palmerston North, (Evening Post, 31 October 1934). Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand.[1]
Location	The Square, Palmerston North New Zealand
Line(s)	North Island Main Trunk
Connections	Palmerston North–Gisborne Line and Foxton Branch
History
Opened	20 October 1876
Closed	21 October 1963

Palmerston North Central railway station was a station on the North Island Main Trunk in New Zealand^[2][3] and the Palmerston North–Gisborne Line.

The original station was opened on 20 October 1876, when the Foxton Tramway was reopened as the Foxton Branch, though from 25 July 1873 the Square had been the terminus for the Tramway.^[4] Traffic increased with the opening of the line to Napier via Woodville in 1891, and the station was moved 30 chains (603m) south in March 1891. But it was still a bottleneck, and remained the longest-persisting bottleneck on the Main Trunk until replaced by the new Palmerston North Railway Station on the Milson Deviation on 21 October 1963.

Dates of opening of railway lines - based on 1942 map sourced from 1 inch sheet N149. Crown Copyright Reserved

References

2. New Zealand Railway and Tramway Atlas (First ed.). Quail Map Co. 1965. pp. 3 & 4.
3. Pierre, Bill (1981). North Island Main Trunk. Wellington: A.H. & A.W. Reed. pp. 289–290. ISBN 0589013165.
4. Old Manawatu, or The Wild Days of the West: T. Lindsay Buick 1903 (also 1877 engine and tram sheds photo)