The Main North Line up the east coast from Christchurch was under construction and a number of proposals were made of routes from the mainline to Oxford.

Construction was undertaken by central government even though the Canterbury Provincial Railways were building the Main North Line, and work began in mid-1872, four months before the mainline reached Rangiora.

The extension from Oxford to Sheffield saw only light local traffic, and its sole moment of significant worth came during World War I.

Lacklustre traffic meant that the line was cut back to Oxford on 14 July 1930, reducing the branch's length to 35.5 kilometres.

Also in 1930, a Royal Commission determined that only one freight train daily from Christchurch to Oxford was required, and the New Zealand Railways Department acted upon this recommendations.

The railway's track bed is sometimes still visible, especially around the Waimakariri Gorge area, and in Rangiora the extra width of Blackett Street reveals the route.