In the second half of the 19th century, farmers in the region desired a railway connection to enhance the value of their land and provide easier access to markets, and received support from interests in Dunedin, who, in the days before the abolition of provinces in 1876, feared a loss of trade to Invercargill.

The local newspaper, the Tapanui Courier, believed that only a short tunnel and some clay cuttings in the Dunrobin Hills stood in the way of extending the railway line to the Clutha River and then on to Roxburgh.

The following stations were located on the Tapanui Branch (in brackets is the distance in kilometres from the junction in Waipahi): In the early days, a mixed train operated from Edievale daily.

To save money, passenger services on the line were cancelled and replaced by buses, thus making the mixed trains goods-only, and the Edievale locomotive depot closed on 1 January 1934.

Extremely severe flooding along the Pomahaka River demolished bridges and washed out the trackage in many places, and costly repairs would not have been economic.

Relics of this branch survive today, though as time progresses, remnants of old railways deteriorate and in some cases disappear entirely, so what was previously evident may no longer exist.

The Tapanui railway yard precinct remains obvious, as are the stands of macrocarpa trees that once defined its limits, although the station building is gone.