The Waikaka Branch was the last of the minor branches of northern Southland to be authorised, though proposals had existed for decades beforehand. Poor transportation access was causing farm values to depreciate while wagoning costs were prohibitive, and settlers petitioned the government for a railway line to improve their economic prospects. The town of
Kelso had already been linked to the
Dunedin-
Invercargill portion of the Main South Line at
Waipahi by the
Tapanui Branch, but a prominent proposal supported another link, this time from Kelso via the Waikaka Valley to
Gore on the Main South Line. In 1878, this line was approved by the government and an official
survey of the route was anticipated in early 1880, but governmental inaction meant that the proposal lapsed and by 1886, residents of the Waikaka Valley had lost hope that a railway would be built. The prospect of a railway was not seriously revived until 1897 when a community financing initiative in the
North Island was approved to construct a line from
Paeroa to
Waihi (later part of the
East Coast Main Trunk Railway). Pressure paid off in 1904 when a branch line to the village of
Waikaka was included in the government's Railways Authorisation Act, but official procrastination meant construction did not commence. The through line from Gore to Kelso still had support; in February 1905, Southland business interests urged the government to begin construction of the Gore-Kelso line and to link the Tapanui Branch with the
Roxburgh Branch, as trade that they felt should rightfully benefit Southland was instead benefitting
Otago due to superior railway access to Dunedin. No significant action was taken to achieve this proposal, but later in 1905, a company was established by local residents to advance half the construction costs of the approved branch to the government, and this led to the passage of the Waikaka Branch Railway Act. The branch left the Main South Line just east of Gore at a locality called McNab. Locals under supervision rather than contractors or engineers built the line twenty-one kilometres up the valley to Waikaka, and it was completed in late 1908. On 26 November 1908, the line was handed over to the Railways Department and the official opening was held the following day. ==Stations==