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}} The Oxford Branch was a branch line railway that formed part of New Zealand's national rail network. It was located in the Canterbury region of the South Island, and ran roughly parallel with the Eyreton Branch that was located some ten kilometres south. It opened to Oxford in 1875 and survived until 1959. It was unusual in that for much of its life it linked two main lines, the Main North Line and the Midland Line, the only portion of the proposed Canterbury Interior Main Line to be completed. == Construction == In the late 1860s, the Oxford region had poor transport, and as it had one of Canterbury's two major stands of timber (the Little River Branch was built to the other) it was seen as economically important to build a branch line to transport the timber. The Main North Line up the east coast from Christchurch was under construction and a number of proposals were made of routes from the main line to Oxford. Two proposals were accepted, from Rangiora to Oxford and from Kaiapoi to West Eyreton (the Eyreton Branch). Construction was undertaken by central government even though the Canterbury Provincial Railways were building the Main North Line, and work began in mid-1872, four months before the main line reached Rangiora. The main line was being built to while the branch was the newly nationally accepted narrow gauge, and this created a break of gauge in Rangiora for a brief period until the Canterbury Provincial Railways were converted to narrow gauge. On 1 December 1874, the branch was opened from Rangiora to Cust, and to Oxford on 21 June 1875 with two stations in Oxford, East and West: East Oxford was considered to be the main station. In early 1877, the Public Works Department decided to extend the Eyreton Branch to the Oxford Branch at Bennetts Junction, opened on 1 February 1878. An extension of the Oxford Branch soon followed, despite the Long Depression of the 1880s and the disapproval of a Royal Commission in 1880, to Sheffield, then known as Malvern and the terminus of a branch line that became the Midland Line. This opened on 28 July 1884 with its most notable engineering feat being a combined road/rail bridge over the Waimakariri Gorge. At this stage, the branch from Kaiapoi to Sheffield was seen as the most northerly portion of the proposed Canterbury Interior Main Line, but it was the only portion to be built. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Oxford Branch (New Zealand)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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