Moana Railway Station Historic Area, situated beside the northern shore of Lake Brunner, has rarity as a relatively complete country station which includes a number of features dating to the early twentieth century. The principal structures of the historic area are the station building, the footbridge, the goods shed and the former stationmaster’s house (now café). The historic area has aesthetic, architectural, historical and social significance or value.

Kōtukuwhakaoka is the Māori name for both the Arnold River and Lake Brunner on Te Tai Poutini (the West Coast), both features being named after a visiting North Island rangatira killed by one of the two taniwha that patrolled the lake. The area has a long Māori association as a place for occupation and resources. In 1886 the Midland Railway Company was granted a 10-year concession to construct a railway from Foxhill, south of Nelson, to Springfield in Canterbury, via the Brunnerton on the West Coast. When the company opened the railway from Brunnerton in November 1892, Moana was only a flag station. The railway reached Jackson by March 1894 but then the company folded, its assets were seized by the Government in 1895 and eventually came into the ownership of New Zealand Railways (NZR). Following the opening of the railway, Pākeha settlers began establishing timber mills in the area and the Lake Brunner Sawmill Company had a 7-chain siding at Moana station in June 1895. The same month saw the opening of a new lean-to addition to the station that incorporated room for a booking office and telephone station. Other facilities at Moana in 1895 included a 200-foot-long platform, a 12-chain loop (siding), and a platelayer's cottage. Moana village, overlooking Lake Brunner, started to become a popular tourist resort by the late nineteenth century. It became a destination for ‘picnic trains’ where carriage-loads of day-trippers would disembark at this small station. Already by the early 1900s there were at least a couple of other additions to the station building (post office, telephone bureau, ladies’ waiting room). The demand for refreshments at the station resulted in the eventual erection of a tearoom addition at the western (footbridge) end of the station building in 1911. Moana was the only staffed station on the Stillwater-Otira railway line. The Moana stationmaster was in charge of the business aspects of that section of railway, with responsibilities for traffic statistics and income. The stationmaster’s house was constructed at the beginning of the twentieth century on the hillside to the north of the yard overlooking the railway station. The goods shed, built around 1907, was the freight depot, where inward goods were unloaded from wagons before being claimed by consignees and where outward goods were placed to await dispatch by wagon.

The Moana Railway Station Historic Area buildings and structures are constructed primarily of timber and iron. The station building is a lean-to timber structure, clad in weatherboard and roofed with iron – it is a replacement built in 1926 as a standard design type ‘5’, once common but now relatively rare. The windowless corrugated iron goods shed is rectangular in plan, 12.2 by 9.6 metres, and has a low-pitch gable roof. There is a sliding door in each end wall (east and west elevations) and a third door on the north side which previously had a loading dock outside. A classic item of railway ‘furniture’, the Moana goods shed is a relatively rare rural example of a once common standard and widely used design. The L-shaped footbridge, with its timber decking and post and rail timber railing, is situated to the west of the main station buildings and forms an overbridge above the railway tracks from the Ana Street to the south side of the tracks where the Railway Station is located. Simple timber beam railway footbridges were once very common but are now relatively rare. The single storeyed former stationmaster’s house has a straight verandah on its south elevation, with a view looking directly down to the railway station below.

By 1925 the facilities at Moana included fixed signals, a passenger platform, a station building, a goods shed, a loading bank, and cattle and sheep yards. In the yard there was a crossing loop able to hold 69 wagons, a loop (30 wagons), goods shed siding loop (14 wagons), and two backshunts both able to hold 12 wagons. On 15 April 1926, the railway station and refreshment rooms were burnt to the ground by a fire which started in the women's waiting room. A temporary railways hut was used at Moana until a new station could be erected but the Railways Department decided not to rebuild the tearooms at this time. The present station, which is similar to but slightly larger than that which burnt down, was built under the supervision of John Mahoney, foreman of works for the West Coast, and completed by October 1926 at a cost of approximately £800. In 1967 the Railways Department decided to make Moana an attended flag station, something that had been attempted earlier in 1942 and again threatened in 1953. In late 1985 the station was closed to all traffic except passengers and parcels. The stationmaster’s house has been added to over time and now operates as a café. The men’s toilet, jigger shed and loading bank were demolished sometime between 1994 and 2004. Moana remains a popular stop for passengers on the TranzAlpine train.