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Driving Creek Railway (DCR)

3506 Coromandel, New Zealand-Aotearoa (Waikato)
Address 380 Driving Creek Road
 
 
Floor area 820 000 m² / 8 826 407 ft²  
 
Museum typ Exhibition
Mountain Railways & Cableways
  • Craft
  • Mine- & Parc Railways

Opening times
 Driving Creek Railway Tours:
Climb aboard for a captivating 1 ¼ hour railway journey to EyeFull Tower, travelling through a regenerating native forest.
Duration: 75 Minutes

In the winter season, passenger services operating according to a timetable are offered two trips a day, and six in the summer. In case of high passenger volume, such trips also run with several trains, which are used in the same timetable position, one immediately after the other.

Coromandel Zipline Tours:
Glide through the forest on this unique zipline canopy tour and experience Coromandel’s breath-taking native forest from all levels, as you fly above trees and walk beneath ferns.
Duration: 150 Minutes (approx.)

Driving Creek Pottery Classes
a creative 1.5 hour pottery class and learn wheel throwing from a professional potter.

Admission
Status from 01/2023
 Driving Creek Railway Tours: Adult: $39,00; Child: $19,00,
2 Adults + 2 Children: $97.00; 2 Adults + 3 Children: $108.00

Coromandel Zipline Tours: Adult: $137.00; Child: $97.00;
2 Adults + 2 Children: $397.00

Driving Creek Pottery Classes: Adult: $57.00; Student: $57.00
Contact
Tel.:+64-7 866 8703  Mobile:+64-800-327 245  
eMail:https://drivingcreek.nz/contact-us   
Homepage
to Location / Directions
drivingcreek.nz
Our page for Driving Creek Railway (DCR) in Coromandel, New Zealand-Aotearoa, is not yet administrated by a Radiomuseum.org member. Please write to us about your experience with this museum, for corrections of our data or sending photos by using the Contact Form to the Museum Finder.
Location / Directions
S36.736933° E175.504000°S36°44.21598' E175°30.24000'S36°44'12.9588" E175°30'14.4000"
Coromandel is a town on the Coromandel Harbour, on the western side of the Coromandel Peninsula, which is in the North Island of New Zealand.
It is 75 kilometres east of the city of Auckland, although the road between them, which winds around the Firth of Thames and Hauraki Gulf coasts, is 190 km long.

The Driving Creek Railway is a narrow gauge bush and mountain railway on the outskirts of the provincial town of Coromandel on the northwestern coast of the Coromandel Peninsula on New Zealand's North Island. The railway leads up the mountain to a viewing platform building 165 m high above the surrounding Coromandel west coast country.
Description

Wikipedia:
The new line has 15 in (381 mm) gauge.

The Driving Creek Railway (DCR) was slowly expanded over 25 years to become one of the very few completely new railway lines in New Zealand in recent years. The project required significant civil engineering works due to the steep and complex terrain that the line traverses.
Among these are the famous Double-Deck viaduct, 3 tunnels, 10 bridges and inclines as steep as 1 in 14.
There is also a short branchline from the potteries to a firewood drying shed, including a short bridge, bridge No 1A, just behind the workshops at Driving Creek; this line is not used by passenger trains, although passengers will see the drying shed as their train climbs from No 1 bridge towards the Lower Spiral.

The line terminates at the Eyefull Tower, completed in 2004 as the final terminus of the railway. The design of the building was based on the Bean Rock Lighthouse in Auckland, and includes a large viewing deck which was added in 2005 at Brickell's suggestion. The view from the Tower has been compared to the Kereta Hill layover just north of Coromandel.

Trains

The line operates a number of items of rolling stock, the most important of which are the 3 diesel railcars, which were built on site by the railway's own workshops.
Possum (1999) is a 14-seater one-car unit, and
Snake (1992) and Linx (2004) are 36-seater, three-unit articulated Railcars.

The railway also operates 2 diesel locomotives;
Dieselmouse, an 0-4-0DM built in 1979 and the first locomotive used on the DCR,
and Elephant, an 0-4-4-0DM built in 1980.
In his book Rails toward the Sky, Barry Brickell stated that Dieselmouse is harder to drive, and is used as a shunting engine around the potteries and firewood drying shed. Elephant, being more powerful, is used on work trains and to haul Possum, Snake, and Linx in the event of a mechanical failure. It can also haul the line's solitary passenger carriage, nicknamed the 'Vintage Train', in times when extra capacity is required.

Site features

The line climbs the hill behind Brickell's pottery, changing direction 5 times at reversing points to zigzag across the face of the hill.
At the terminus is a wooden building, the "Eyefull Tower". Although this is a pun on the name Eiffel Tower (and on the wide land and sea views from the tower), its octagonal design is based on a much nearer landmark, the Bean Rock Lighthouse in Auckland Harbour.

There are a variety of other features on the site, such as a growing areas of re-planted native forest (including kauri), a wildlife sanctuary and a sculpture park (throughout the site and along the rail line, varying pottery and brick artworks abound, and also include retaining walls made of glass bottles
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