By 1930, New Zealand Railways was facing issues with erosion of the Oamaru railway yard by breakers from the Pacific Ocean. Despite the construction of a mole to make the Oamaru harbour more suitable for shipping, this provided no protection for the railway land. As NZR had withdrawn a number of obsolete steam locomotives and scrap prices were low, the decision was made to dump some of these locomotives at Oamaru as erosion control. The dumpsite was well known to railway enthusiasts, who would visit the site at low tide to view the remains of the locomotives. In 2002, enthusiast Tony Bachelor salvaged the remains of Brooks UB 17 and 1898-built Baldwin UB 282 for his Hooterville Charitable Steam Trust. Due to Hooterville's closure in 2005, the locomotives have since languished on the site of the old Waitara railway yards and are visible from Johnstone Street,
Waitara. In 2008 the dumpsite was threatened again by the sea, and OnTrack began work in June of that year to shore the bank back up. As a part of this, most of the remains of the dump site were removed from the foreshore with some handed over to the
Oamaru Steam and Rail Restoration Society for safekeeping. Today the dump site is largely non-existent although the remains of at least 1 Canterbury J Class engine is still in place on the foreshore, having never been recovered for an unknown reason. ==Locomotives dumped at Oamaru==