Paeroa's First Railway Station

Ohinemuri Regional History Journal 37, September 1993

By J A T Terry

EDITORS NOTE: This article is reproduced from the "N Z Railway Observer" with permission of the author.

Opening of Paeroa Railway Station – 1895

On 20 December 1895, when the excursion train from Auckland to celebrate the opening of the line from Te Aroha to Paeroa drew unto the station at the Paeroa township, it was not into a station called Paeroa, but one called Ohinemuri. The station had not been called Paeroa because, on the line from Auckland to Helensville, between the stations of Woodhill and Ohirangi, there was already a station of that name.

It was not unknown for two stations to have the same name. At that time there was an Appleby on the isolated Nelson section and one on the Seaward Bush branch in Southland; and a Normanby on the New Plymouth line and one near Timaru in the South Island. None of these similarly named stations, however, was on the same section. To have had two stations named Paeroa on the same section would have caused confusion.

The matter was soon rectified, for on 1 March 1896 the station on the Helensville line was renamed Wharepapa and Ohinemuri became Paeroa, thus ending the very short tenure of the name of Ohinemuri for the station serving the Paeroa township.

It is interesting to note that, when plans were drawn up for the station that became Paeroa South, the name Ohinemuri was again suggested.