"Ghost Towns" of The South Island New Zealand" Season 2 Episode 2 Featuring The Town of Denniston скачать в хорошем качестве

"Ghost Towns" of The South Island New Zealand" Season 2 Episode 2 Featuring The Town of Denniston

The Forsaken Explorer Nz Ghost Towns Of The South Island New Zealand, Season 2 Episode 2 Featuring The Town of Denniston Denniston is a small settlement, 15 kilometres (9 miles) east of Westport, on the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand. It is situated on the Denniston Plateau, 600 metres (2,000 ft) above sea level in the Papahaua Ranges. It is named for R. B. Denniston, manager of the first major mine to open on the West Coast in the 1870s. During the first few decades of the 20th century, up to 1400 people lived in the townships on the Denniston Plateau to service the large coal mines there. Coal was transported in railway wagons from the plateau via the Denniston Incline to Conns Creek, where steam locomotives of New Zealand Railways took coal trains to the port of Westport The Denniston Incline closed in 1967. The plateau now has a population of fewer than 10 people, and virtually all the buildings and structures are gone, although many historical relics remain – scattered throughout the plateau and incline area amongst the scrub vegetation. There are proposals for future mining on the Denniston Plateau. The Westport Coal Company The Westport Colliery Company, predecessor to the Westport Coal Company, was formed in 1878 to mine the high quality coal on the Mount Rochfort Plateau, commonly known as the Denniston Plateau. To access the coal, the company extended the nearby Wellington Coal Company's branch railway on the south bank of the Waimangaroa River by 1.1 kilometres (0.68 miles) to Conns Creek, and constructed the Denniston Incline, and the roperoads from the mines to the top of the incline. To raise additional capital to develop the mines further, the Westport Colliery Company was reformed into the Westport Coal Company in 1881. The company also operated mines in other places on the West Coast, including Millerton, and by 1905, the company was by far the largest coal producer in New Zealand. The Westport Coal Company's mines and the Denniston Incline were taken over by the New Zealand State Mines Department in 1948. The Denniston Incline began operation in April 1880. It was a self-acting ropeway that used gravity to lower 12.5 ton gross laden weight New Zealand Railways' coal wagons one at a time from Brakehead, at Denniston, at the top to Conns Creek below. Each descending wagon hauled an empty one up the incline by means of wire ropes, each wagon attached to its own rope and brake drum. The two drums were mounted beside each other on a common shaft, and the wire rope wound in opposite directions on each drum. So while one drum was letting the rope out and lowering a full wagon down the incline, the other drum was winding its rope in and pulling an empty wagon up the incline. Hydraulic pistons slowed the rotation of the winding drums to control the speed of the wagons. The Denniston Incline was actually two inclines. The higher of the two began at Brakehead, and descended steeply to the appropriately named Middle Brake. Here wagons were disconnected from the first incline's rope, and placed on the rope of the second incline for a more gentle descent to Conns Creek, where the accumulated wagons would then be marshalled into trains before being taken to Westport. The drum from Middle Brake is now on display at Westport's Coaltown Museum. The upper part of each incline had essentially two sets of railway tracks side by side (three rails, with the inner rail shared by both tracks), while below the midsection of each incline (where wagons passed each other) the two sets of track were 'interwoven'.  Each side of the inclines alternately had wagons ascending and descending – otherwise the ropes would get crossed over. (An image of a full wagon descending the upper part of one incline can be seen below in External links.) The southern side of the inclines was called the 'Company Side', as that was the side the company offices were located on; the northern side of the inclines was called the 'Donkey Side'. The system did not always function as intended and collisions, derailments and runaways were not unknown. The remains of several wrecked wagons still lie beside, or even some distance from, the incline formation. The Denniston incline fell a total of 516 metres (1,693 feet) in 1,670 metres (83 chains or 1.04 miles), with some sections having gradients steeper than 1 in 1.3. Wagons could be delivered from Denniston to Conns Creek at a rate of 12 to 18 wagons per hour.[19] The track gauge was the standard NZR track gauge of 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm). The railway wagons used on the incline were mainly the common "Q" class hopper wagons, the hoppers of which could be detached from their wagon bodies and lifted by wharf crane over the hold of a ship, and the bottom discharge doors of the wagons then opened manually to discharge coal into the ships' holds.