A kilometre (0.6 mi) south of the Newstead Station a five span timber bridge was needed to cross the Mangaonua Stream, and a contract to lay the permanent way over the full distance was let on 21 February 1884 at the price of £5,455.

On 6 October a special train brought the new station master and his family along with other members of the staff to Cambridge and two days later the line was open for traffic.

Heavy materials, machinery, steel and cement used in the construction of the dam were railed direct to Cambridge and then transported further by truck to Karapiro.

This new siding left the Main just within the Home Signal boundary and passed along the outer limits parallel to the yard to the large Public Works warehouse.

The old station building was sold and broken up in 1973 and an overhead crane was erected in its place to handle container traffic from Weddell Crown Aotearoa freezing works in Leamington.

As shown in the table and graph, passenger traffic peaked in 1922, after a more frequent bus started running in 1920[7] – The following stations were located on the Cambridge Branchline with distances measured from Ruakura Junction.

Newstead (originally named Mongonui)[8] was the first station located on the branch line after leaving the East Coast Main Trunk.

Owing to the demise of passenger traffic and increase in road cartage of goods the station was removed although the loop was used at times to store retired wagons even into the 1980s.

In the late 1980s expansions to the dairy factory and the construction of a new bulk refrigerated storage facility required the branch 'Main' to be diverted and new rail sidings built.

There were dairy factories located at Matangi and Bruntwood (Fencourt) and Hautapu requiring inwards supplies and sending outwards goods.

Freight traffic continued with common goods carried including wood, coal, wool, meat, cars, fertiliser and grain.

In 1973 a gantry-type container crane was erected in the station yard for the truck to train transition of containerised refrigerated meat from the Weddell Crown freezing works in Leamington.

In 2010 KiwiRail required that the railway designation remain in place to protect the potential for the line to carry freight and passengers in future.

[12] All evidence of the railway yard has been erased with exception of a loading bank, the stockyard platform and the remains of the locomotive inspection pit on the site of the old loco depot.

The development makes way for new housing and shops in the two story buildings with the rest of the space being turned into a large carpark with no unique tips to the sites rail history.

In 2020 double tracking and potentially reopening the Cambridge station for events, were put forward as part of a scheme to help the area recover from the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.