Thirteen years after the rail line was completed into Blenheim in 1880, the line was extended into Riverland's first railway station, Omaka, in April of 1893 to supply a freezing works here. Three years later the station was closed and the rails pulled up. Alas, there is no readily available information as to just where Omaka Station was, without going to Wellington and searching the Railway archives. Two years after the station was closed, in 1898, Riverlands stop was installed here - you an see the remains of the platform as the slight rise in the ground on the other side of the rails from the cache. No shelter shed or other buildings were provided. Riverlands Station was closed in 1968 and all that remains is the space on this side of the railway where the goods siding was, and the remains of the platform on the other side of the railway.
Investigations into a line south to connect via Kaikoura to Christchurch had been ongoing since before the inception of this line and was still ongoing after Blenheim was connected in 1880. Three routes south were proposed, via the coast and via the Awatere or Wairau River valleys however despite numerous submissions no decision on the route could be made. Eventually it was handed to a Royal Commission. It is interesting that the Royal Commission returned in favour of the coastal route in 1882 as having the "least disadvantages" as opposed to emphasizing any actual advantages.
Now that the route was decided, funding had to be found. The £10M loan arranged by the Colonial Treasurer, Julius Vogel, in 1870 had pretty much dried up, there was less funds available, and it was more expensive. For the rail south to proceed it had to make money as soon as possible. And that meant breaking up the farms. The land south of Blenheim was mostly locked in large sheep stations, for which the primary revenue was the annual wool clip. Those along the proposed route were purchased by the government and subdivided, sometimes creating new towns in the process. Construction of the formations - embankments, cuttings, etc, but not bridges - was started in 1881 and reached Vernon, the next stop from here, in 1882, just two days late on the contract. But it was not till the freezing works opened here that the impetuous was there to actually lay the rails, eleven years after the formations were built.
References:
Merrifield, R: "Beyond Dashwood", published by the New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society, 1990
McGavin, T.A.: "A Century of Railways in Marlborough 1876-1976", published by the New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society, 1977.
Scoble, J: "Names and Opening and Closing Dates of Railway Stations", published by the Rail Heritage Trust of New Zealand, 2010
Churchman, G & Hurst, T: "South Island Main Trunk 1992", published by IPL Books, 1992.
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