[1] The original reason for the line's construction was to provide better transport access to Lawrence, then known as Tuapeka, the site of New Zealand's first significant discovery of gold.
Slips and contractor bankruptcies presented delays, but on 22 January 1877, the line opened to Waitahuna, followed by Lawrence on 2 April 1877, 35.27 km from Clarksville.
[3] Decades passed until approval was granted to extend the line beyond its Lawrence terminus, with the next section to Big Hill (location of a tunnel between the Bowlers Flat and Craigellachie stations) opened on 4 October 1910.
[6] When the line became the Roxburgh Branch, the predominant sources of motive power were tender locomotives of the A and AB classes during this period.
[2] Diesel locomotives were only authorised to operate on the Roxburgh Branch at the time of its closure, to haul trains involved with the dismantling of the line.
[7] This train, however, turned out not to be the last as the line was granted a two-month reprieve until 31 May 1968 awaiting a final decision on how the export logs from the vicinity of the then Beaumont State forest were to be transported.
The nearby Heriot to Edievale section of the Tapanui Branch, previously closed on 1 January 1968 had its removal also delayed in 1968 for the same reason.
The speed of the trains carrying the passengers that day was limited to 15 miles per hour throughout the journey due to poor track conditions.
On the return journey into Roxburgh that afternoon a flimsy wooden barricade constructed two miles north of Millers Flat, created by locals protesting the closure of the line, was knocked aside by the advancing train, which barely slowed, to the cheers of its passengers.
Sir Arthur Tindall, then judge of the Arbitration Court was travelling in the cab of the following train that day from Roxburgh hauled by the AB.
Hut accommodation for demolition workers, removal equipment such as bulldozers and a mobile crane on crawlers were transported to Roxburgh by a DJ hauled train on 2 July 1968.
Men had been recruited from Winter Employment schemes and the mobile crane lifted complete track sets onto flat top wagons for transporting out.
Further back up the line, by February 1969 it was reported that the Roxburgh station was derelict without a window left in place and the goods shed was being demolished.
By early July 1969 the rail line had been removed from under the State Highway 8 road overbridge, tunnel and SH8 level crossing of Big Hill.
Looking at Google Earth in 2007 one can easily trace the line through the countryside by zooming in, seeing cuttings, formations and even some railway building structures.
This included potentially a suggestion of re-diverting SH8 up the east side of the Clutha River to Millers Flat, general road easements/realignments at old level crossings and the installation of crawler lanes for heavy truck vehicles.
[13] Some of these came to fruition but it was not until 2000 that the old formation up the Beaumont Gorge was turned into a minor public road, the Millennium track, which may form part of a future rail trail on the Roxburgh Branch.
Although remnants of closed railway lines deteriorate and disappear over time, a number of relics from the Roxburgh Branch still exist.
[14] Most of the route between Beaumont and to a point near Millers Flat (Minzion) has been made into a public rail trail/track and can now be driven, cycled or walked over.
The trail track through the Beaumont gorge diverts briefly from the old rail corridor to pass over a hill at point known as the Lonely Graves where "Somebody's Darling" lies buried.
Loading banks can be found in Manuka, Evans Flat, Bowlers Creek, and Craigellachie, and a now preserved goods shed is in Teviot (With a Historic Places Trust plaque explaining its significance to the district).
A number of relics remain in Roxburgh from its days as a railway terminus; these include a water tank for steam locomotives, the station building converted for farm use, loading banks, a turntable pit, the old rail cement discharge silos at the southern end of the yard (used when cement was transported by rail for the Roxburgh dam construction), and even the concrete stop block that signified the end of the branch.