The perfect pause for Rail Trailers to rest and refuel
Hyde was originally called ‘Eight Mile’ because of its distance from the Hamiltons Gold Mine where during the gold rush era many of the town’s residents found work. At Hyde itself, extensive mineral deposits were discovered for glass making and fine pottery. A china clay pit is still worked to this day. Hyde is also home to Cooks Transport where a 24 self-service RD petrol and diesel is open to the public. As remote as Hyde may seem, its main street, Eton Street, is in fact State Highway 87 that runs from Highway 85 at Kyeburn (15km east of Ranfurly) to State Highway 1 at Mosgiel. For Rail Trailers, Hyde is perfectly positioned to rest and refuel as the nearest food and refreshments are 29km to the north at Waipiata and 27km south in Middlemarch.
With no suitably level ground in Hyde, the railway station had to be located 2km away on a flat area big enough to on and offload wagons. The original station building is owned by the Otago Central Rail Trail Trust and open to the public to explore railways memorabilia. A few kilometres south of the station on June 1943, of the 113 passengers on board the Cromwell to Dunedin Express 21 lost their lives when the train failed to take a bend. Hyde is also an ideal step off point for a visit to historic Macraes Flat and the enormous 24/7 Macraes gold mine.
