most servicing equipment moving to the new and substantial Island Harbour port, built from 1956 and opening in December 1960. When containerisation was introduced and freight transportation trends changed, Bluff was not selected to be developed as a container port, but it and the railway have remained busy with traffic such as frozen meat, wool, and wood chips. In more recent years a degree of containerisation has taken place with the port investing in mobile crane and straddler facilities, rail playing a predominant role in moving containers from the large private container distribution centre located at Clifton. In 2016 a new port owned multimodal distribution centre was completed on an unused area of the Invercargill railway yards next to the Bluff Line entrance. The port company favouring rail as its wharf to centre transportation solution. Station As with all colonial transport facilities over time, Bluff station started with a rudimentary class 5 station until growing into an impressive two-story Gordon Troup designed edifice befitting of the southernmost railway station in the British Empire. For many years, passenger traffic on the line was heavy, with 12,000 fares travelling in a single day to a regatta in Bluff on 1 January 1900. Development of modern road networks and private cars caused passenger numbers to decline from the 1930s. In 1929 the Clayton steam railcar was used on the line to provide passenger services, but it was withdrawn in 1930 due to the Great Depression. The 1950 public timetable showed seven-weekday services each way, with an eighth on Fridays; five on Saturdays; and one on Sundays. This declined starkly over the following years, and by 1964, only one passenger train ran each way on weekdays and none at weekends. The remaining service was operated for school children, running from Bluff to Invercargill in the morning and returning in the late afternoon. In 1967, all passenger services were cancelled. The station was run down and used as surplus storage until a fire damaged it in 1970, promptly demolished after. Passenger trains briefly returned when the Kingston Flyer operated some services to Bluff between 1979 and 1982. Locomotives Steam locomotives used on the line were mainly restricted to the lightweight U and Q class along with smaller tank locomotives such as WA, WF, F and D classes. The reason being the only turning facilities at Bluff was the "Wye" layout that was part of the