Tours of Athenree Homestead have a new track this summer – with the newly-relocated railway station open, offering a slice of locomotive history and refreshments.

Athenree Homestead Trust spent much of 2014 relocating the station from the property entranceway to behind the homestead and converting it to refreshment rooms, complete with a commercial kitchen.

Athenree Homestead Trust chair Trish Coates is thrilled with how the relocated and refurbished Athenree Railway Station now looks. Photo by Merle Foster.

Trust chair Trish Coates says despite the station officially opening this Wednesday, it's still 'a work in progress” but is on offer at the homestead's Summer Sunday open days.

Trish says volunteers can now offer refreshments, including their famous Devonshire teas, from the station.

'We're keeping the railway station historically intact and in time it'll be decorated with memorabilia, information and history about the railway station.”

Waihi rail enthusiast Rob Bowater says the station was one of three on the Waihi-Tahawai section of the East Coast main trunk railway.

'The railway route circled the lower end of the homestead property and the station was originally located in the new State Highway 2 deviation area, south-west of the homestead,” says Rob.

'This section of railway was built from the Waihi-end, by the Public Works Department between 1912 and 1927 and handed over to the New Zealand Government Railways.”

Constructed in 1919, Rob says the Athenree station was a single-storey box cottage-style building with a lean-to corrugated iron roof and rusticated timber weatherboards.

'The building was originally just over 51 feet long and 12 feet wide. Currently, it measures 44 feet long, having lost a portion containing ladies' toilets and an enclosed front yard.”

The building used to contain a spacious stationmaster's room with open fire and brick chimney plus a public counter, lobby with seating and ladies' waiting room.

Constructed to link Waikato and the Bay of Plenty, the railway transported goods and passengers, and children boarded at Athenree to go to school at Katikati.

'The railway from Waihi opened to goods traffic from December 1, 1924, but the station officially opened on May 1, 1927.

'September 11, 1967 ended the passenger service from the station, but it continued for goods traffic until November 2, 1969.”

The line between Apata and Paeroa South closed September 12, 1978, when the Kaimai tunnel was opened by Prime Minister Rob Muldoon.

The station was boarded up and sold to Norm Stockley at Waihi Beach, then sat on Graham Reisterer's Edinburgh St beach property for several years.

Realising the building was deteriorating and wanting it saved, Graham offered it to the Victoria Battery and Tramway Society at Waikino and Athenree Homestead Trust, says Rob.

'The latter accepted and in March 2005 the station building was transported to Athenree Homestead and placed near the property entrance.”

Trish says the homestead and station's intertwined history make the restoration from a storage shed of 10 years very worthwhile.

Homestead owner Hugh Stewart's brother George Vesey Stewart was founder of the Ulster settlement at Katikati and reportedly promised settlers in 1875 a connection to Auckland by rail.

When the railway reached in Waihi in 1905 and stalled, George put pressure on the Government and subsequently lobbying led to the route being chosen.

'The station was named after the homestead – it all links in,” says Trish.

'Now instead of it sitting down the hill being neglected it's being used, everybody can go find out about it – it's another historical bit of the area.”