One of Southland’s oldest railway lines, KiwiRail's 70km Lorneville to Ohai section, is set to be mothballed this year, marking the end of an era for a line that has served the region’s coalfields and communities since 1882.

A busy Thornbury Station where Nightcaps and Ohai coal trains branched from the Invercargill - Tuatapere line. Trains once bound for Riverton, Tuatapere and Owaria also passed through this station. Photo: GW Emerson/Central & Western Archives (All Rights Reserved).

Bathurst Coal Ltd's' decision to close its Takitimu Mine in 2027, as well as escalating maintenance costs have been blamed for the line's eventual fate.

KiwiRail Chief Infrastructure Officer Siva Sivapakkiam said the Ohai Line was in a poor state, following an extreme weather event in September 2023, with most of it now closed to trains and trucks being used to transport coal to the Invercargill railhead.

“The line requires more than $1 million of repair work to reopen it but it will then need tens of millions of dollars more spent on upgrades - including replacing a number of ageing wooden bridges with modern structures - over the next five years.”

“The national rail network is publicly funded and given the mine is closing this spending cannot be justified,” Sivapakkiam said.

Sivapakkiam said the first 9km of the Ohai Line, to the Alliance Groups meat works at Lorneville, would however remain fully operational.

KiwiRail will now remove railway signage north of Lorneville, Sivapakkiam said, however periodic inspections and some low-level maintenance between Lorneville and Ohai would continue to ensure the rail corridor remains safe.

Wairio Station was the terminus between the national railway network and the private Ohai Railway Board line. In 1992 the Ohai Board sold its line to the national network. Photo: GW Emerson/Central & Western Archives. (All Rights Reserved).

Originally opened to Wairio on March 3, 1882, the railway branched off from the Tuatapere line at Thornbury, and was a lifeline for settlers, farmers, millers and coal miners.

Over the decades, the line expanded to support private coal operations, including a route to Nightcaps and later to Ohai, completed in 1924.

Managed by the Ohai Railway Board, these extensions were eventually absorbed into the national rail network in 1992.

The line reached Birchwood in 1934, though ambitious plans to extend it toward Te Anau and Manapouri never materialized.

Passenger services ceased in 1954, and freight—primarily coal—became the line’s mainstay.

Diesel locomotives replaced steam in the 1960s, and by the 2000s, the line was known as the Ohai Industrial Line.

Latterly the line played a key role in transporting coal from Takitimu Mine to Fonterra’s Clandeboye factory, with upgrades in 2011–2012 to support heavier trains.

However major damage to the line in 2023 saw all train movements on the line stopped in favour of road transport.