Charming Creek Tramway

Watson's Mill with the incline in the background, ca. 1920

The brothers George and Robert Watson commissioned the new Watson's Mill at Ngakawau in 1903 or 1905, after their Granity Creek Sawmill had burned down to the ground under suspicious circumstances, without being insured against fire. The new location was surrounded by plenty of bush for logging and was located near a NZR railway line. To achieve a cost-effective transport, and because the steep Ngakawau Gorge was not suitable as a route for hauling timber by horses or oxen, the Watson brothers built a forest railway from the sawmill on the north side of the Ngakawau River to Hector. This had a very steep incline, which fell down to the mill and which was mastered by an 8-horsepower hilltop steam winch similar to a funicular.[2] ^p. 7

Complicated route via a cutting for the tramline with wooden rails

As the first forest railway had presumably been uneconomic or inefficient to operate because of the steep incline, a new logging railway was built between 1907 and 1912, from the mill through the steep Lower Ngakawau Gorge to the railway line in Ngakawau. The construction of the logging railway was a technical masterpiece with elaborate cuts, embankments, tunnels and bridges. One of the tunnels, however, was called the Irishman's Tunnel, as it was constructed with an S-shaped bend to compensate for a fault, which was noted, when the tunnel boring teams, who propelled from both sides did not meet. Due to the steep topography of the Lower Ngakawau Gorge, this stretch of track had many tight turns and a very steep 1:7 (14 ‰) downward slope. Initially, the track had wooden rails. These were replaced by steel rails in the 1920s, when the use of steam locomotives and converted to rail vehicles tractors was common. The gauge of the tram was chosen at 3 feet 6 inches (1067 mm) to match that of New Zealand Rail (NZR). Steep sections of the tram had a raised wooden center rail for braking with a Fell style friction wheel drive.[2] ^p. 7

A WD 40 locey with a rake of coal wagon crawling downhill

On 24 May 1926 Robert Watson and six other investors set-up the Charming Creek Westport Coal Company (CCWCC) to mine hard coal just above the sawmill. On 9 September 1928 Robert Watson and another director of the CCWCC, SJ Akinson, died in a car accident at Buller Gorge, on their way home from a business trip to Christchurch.[2] ^pp. 11–12

In 1928, a 3.5 m (12 ft) thick coal seam was found after digging a flat, 200m long adit with a cross section of 2.5m x 2.25m (8 x 7.5 ft). By the end of that year, 1928, a small amount of coal was mined. Contrary to the original plans to transport the coal in water-filled flumes into the valley, a mining railway was chosen as a means of transport for the coal. It was completed by 1929 and served both the wood and the coal transport. When the existing logging railway had to be extended from Watson's Mill to the coal mine, the entire route was reconstructed with reduced slopes and larger radii of curvature. The mine railway led directly into the mine. The coal was blasted off the face using the board and pillar method of extraction and shoveled into coal-wagons weighing 1.7 tons. These were brought to the surface with horses and then brought by a rail tractor on the logging and mining railway to Ngakawau. In Ngakawau, a coal bin was built, into which the coal from the lorries could be tipped from above, to load it later via shutes into the NZR freight cars. The large wagons that transported the coal to Ngakawau required the installation of an improved center brake rail and the use of a special brake car for safety reasons, if one of the couplings broke.[2] ^p. 13

In the period 1866–1914, the West Coast New Zealand timber industry served mainly the domestic market by a number of small local sawmill companies. Later, from 1915 to 1932, the West Coast became a major export-oriented wood production region. At its peak in the 1920s-1930s, Westland's timber accounted for about 20% of New Zealand's total produce.[2] ^{S. 48}

The Charming Creek sawmill became successful because of its own forest railway and state NZR railroads. The NZR enabled low-cost timber transport and required a lot of sawn beams and boards for sleepers and building products. In this context, the Charming Creek sawmill was representative of the previously relatively common type of sawmill, which focused on the supply of lumber for the home improvement and mining industries.[2] ^{S. 48}

Miners on their way home after a long day under ground

At the beginning of the 20th century, when most of the Buller region's coal mines were operated by the government, Watson and his co-investors took the risk of building a coal mine that would eventually become one of the largest and most durable private coal mines in the region. The mine's location at the top of Charming Creek presented numerous difficulties in transporting the coal. New methods to increase efficiency were implemented, e.g. using hydro-mining and water for the transport of coal from the mine and the tribute system as a new employment system. In later years, the miners used strikes to put pressure on the mine owners to join the lobby for the completion of the Seddonville road.[2] ^p. 49