Until the 1970s, Addington was a major facility for the receiving and sale of livestock, with significant stock yards, races and loading platforms beside the track.
In the last years of this traffic, there were in excess of 1,000 head to move, requiring a substantial portion of the cattle wagon fleet in the South Island.
Today, the passenger facilities are gone, but the site still retains a signal box, several loops and railsheds for the storage of rolling stock.
The two earlier stations, at Madras Street and Moorhouse Avenue, were a short distance away to the east on the Main South Line, closer to the city centre.
It was equipped with a signal box, freight sidings for nearby industrial customers as well as passenger facilities and a platform, which is the only remaining feature.
The signal box, constructed in 1870, was to have been moved to the Ferrymead Heritage Park for use in the rail operations there after many years of disuse until it was destroyed on-site by fire in September 1996, shortly before its relocation.
The Main North Line through Kainga was opened on 1 September 1958 as a deviation when the Waimakariri River Bridge at Stewarts Gully was replaced with a new structure 1.6 km upstream.
It is located in Restell Street, Papanui, Christchurch, and is registered by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust as a Category II heritage building with registration number.
Riccarton station at the time had a small but busy freight yard, handling coal consignments for local merchants, timber from the West Coast, and wheat and flour traffic for the mill sited on land that now forms the grounds of Christchurch Girls' High School.
[5] For many years, a special train ran through Riccarton station to the October meeting of the Kaikoura Trotting Club.
The dates of operation of the station are not known at the time of writing, but the Main North Line in the area opened on 29 April 1872, and closed on 31 August 1958 when the Waimakariri River Bridge was replaced with a new structure and associated trackage 1.6 km upstream.
Formerly known as Hillsborough after another nearby suburb, this station continues to serve as a freight hub for several adjacent industrial customers.