Nouméa-Païta railway

The idea of a railway connecting Nouméa to Canala on the North coast of the island 166 km Northwest of Noumea was first approved by governor Pallu de la Barrière in 1884. But money failed as the Conseil General hesitated to give the required loan necessary for the enterprise.[1] The following governor Paul Feillet was able to elect a Conseil General who borrowed the sum necessary for the execution of a program of works including the construction of a railway.

The line was inaugurated August 17, 1901, but opened to users first on December 30, 1904. The ambitious initial project had been considerably truncated as the line stopped at Dumbéa. The deep cut to bring the line across a hill and the Tonghoué Tunnel, gave work for four years and created some permanent jobs. But the line carried passengers and goods only seventeen kilometer to the cost of more than four and a half million francs.

In 1908, the Société des Charbonnages de Nouvelle-Calédonie, which exploited the deposits of Nondoué, proposed to build at its own expense a Dumbéa-Païta section. The Conseil General adopted the project, contracted a new loan and the works. The new section, which required the construction of a 79 m bridge over the Dumbéa and the opening of a second tunnel, was to require four years of work. First January 1914 the Nouméa-Païta line was inaugurated, twenty-nine kilometers traveled in a little over an hour and a half, with ten stops and a compulsory stop at Dumbéa, between the departure station and the arrival station.

The Operating accounts were balanced in 1908 but from 1912 the situation began to decline. The reasons were epidemic of plague, the Great War, the competition of buses in the twenties and the world economic crisis. In November 1939, a decision was made to temporarily stop the operation of the railway. The Nouméa-Païta railway closed on 1 January 1940 owing to low ridership, the deficit of the company and rolling stock and tracks in poor condition.

In April 1942 the American 790th Railway Transportation Company reopened the line to operate railways for the Allied presence on New Caledonia.[2][3][4]

After the Americans left the line was abandoned and demolished. The remains of the former railway station of Païta remain in the north of the town. The loading platform and the ramp are well-preserved and the foundations of various buildings are still visible. A small locomotive, nicknamed Marguerite, is preserved on the former railway ground. The locomotive was used until 1940.[5] The narrow gauge track, however, was dismantled and the former alignment of the railway track is no longer visible.

The line counted eight stations within the three municipalities of the Southern Province. It started in Nouméa city centre and counted a secondary station in the ward (Grand Quartier) of Riviére Salée.[6] It crossed the villages of Auteuil and Col de Tonghoué before entering Dumbéa. After, the line crossed the village of Nondoué and Mount Mou, the nearby mountain,[7] a few kilometres before the last station, Païta. It counted a pair of tunnels (Tunnel de Tonghoué and Tunnel de l'Erambéré) and three bridges over the rivers La Ouanéoué, La Dumbéa[8] and Karikouié.

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  Locomotive Marguerite
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  Former station of Païta

Media related to Rail transport in New Caledonia at Wikimedia Commons