Mcalpine Street in the suburb of Wigram, Christchurch

Mcalpine Street in Wigram and nothing on the library website. I couldn’t find any mention on council website either.

On Papers Past the earliest entry was in 1963 where it is mentioned as a new street in the Railways Dept Industrial subdivision. It was named after John Mcalpine who was the Minister of Railways. Various ads have it in the suburbs of Souckburn and Upper Riccarton but it has settled itself in the suburb of Wigram. Most ads were for businesses related to transport.

John Kenneth Mcapline died in 1984 and as well as being Minister of Transport he had a connection to the Lyttelton Harbour Board. His obituary said that his efforts helped to build the Christchurch International Airport. A special note to all my Lyttelton friends is that this man worked on the Lyttelton waterfront in 1951 and he was proud of this. Yes he was a scab.

I walked this street yesterday and it would be too busy to walk on a normal working day. It is still full of businesses related to the transport industry and the two biggest ones are Mainfreight and Daily Freight. At the Curletts Rd end there is a footpath that takes you up to Curletts Rd overbridge. I suspect that this street used to go across Curletts Rd but couldn’t find any maps to show this.