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This year, the North Island Main Trunk line turned 100 years old. And it remains a testament to the vision, determination and sheer grit of the men who planned and built it. BY RACHEL MACDONALD
That moment had been 23 years coming and marked the completion of 680 kilometres of rails that would revolutionise transport in New Zealand. The first sod had been turned near Te Awamutu, by Maniopoto paramount chief, Wahanui Huatare, along with Rewi Maniapoto and Premier Robert Stout, on April 15, 1885. The first regular through-train service left Wellington for Auckland on November 9, 1908. That was, however, not the first train to run the full length of the main trunk line. That honour had already gone to the Parliament Special a few months earlier; a train laid on specifically for the purpose of carrying the capital’s politicians north to meet the United States Navy’s visiting Great White Fleet. This despite the fact that the track was still unfinished, with the train having to negotiate temporary, unballasted track half way up, rushed through by the Public Works Department just for the occasion.
The idea of a main trunk railway linking Auckland with the capital had been talked about since the 1860s, but the idea made little progress before 1880. At that stage of play, Auckland’s southern line reached as far as Te Awamutu, and isolated sections had also been built in Taranaki, Manawatu, Hawke’s Bay, and between Wellington and Wairarapa. However, between southern Waikato and Manawatu lay thousands of hectares of rugged country – volcanic mountains, deep ravines, dense forests and Maori land. This challenging terrain was to pose the greatest challenges for the engineers tasked with driving the route through the countryside.
Given the technology available at the time, and the lack of access into the country’s frontier heartland, the railway had to be largely cut and laid by hand. Oxen, horses and small steam locomotives served to move the bulk of the building materials, with the latter shuttling goods and passengers along each section of the railway line as it was finished. Then – finally – in the last two years of the project, one of New Zealand’s first steam shovels was brought onto the job to help dig the cuttings. Although the early railway surveyors and builders did their best to reduce construction costs by avoiding tunnels wherever possible, they frequently found that tunnelling was actually cheaper than going round an obstruction. Elsewhere, massive steel viaducts, partly manufactured on site, bridged the deep ravines at Makatote, Hapuawhenua, Mangaweka, Makohine, among others. In fact, in the mountainous central region of the North Island, the Main Trunk line crosses several spectacular steel bridges, of which Makatote and Makohine are the highest, and Mangaweka is the longest
The jewel in the railway line’s crown is the engineering masterpiece that is the Raurimu spiral, which surveyed and mapped out around 1898 by RW Holmes. Its three horseshoe bends, two tunnels and full circle proved the key to a workable climb from Taumarunui to the National Park summit. The spiral shape climbs 132 metres over a distance of two kilometres and was designed to make the best possible use of the topography to minimise cutting, filling and tunnelling. By 1906, the workforce labouring on the main trunk had topped 2700 men. And in 1907, an extra shift was added, with the workers carrying on through the night, lit by kerosene lamps. In fact, the conditions under which they lived and worked were harsh at the best of times, especially in the long King Country and Central Plateau winters. They found themselves in isolated shantytowns and tent encampments, where the diversions on offer consisted largely of gambling and drinking.
On the Auckland side of Waiouru the planned route through a series of deep cuttings, which – owing to the enormous amount of material to be excavated – threatened to hold delay the works ahead. In order to avoid this and to ensure continuity of supply towards the railhead, a temporary deviation from the main line was deemed necessary. Striking out just north of Waiouru, the new track plunged down a one-in-fifteen grade to cross a shallow gully. After climbing out at the other side on a somewhat easier grade, it rejoined the main line near the seven-mile Karioi straight, which became the longest stretch of straight track in the North Island. The next major obstacle was the construction of the great, curved Hapuawhenua Viaduct, which could not start until the rails had reached Ohakune, as there was no other way of getting materials to the site. Again, a deviation from the main line became necessary in order to deliver the hundreds of tons of steel and concrete into location as early as possible. This temporary track, which also became the passenger traffic railhead, was laid alongside the present road, then up the ravine over which the viaduct now carries the line.
In the end, it was in the dense forests between Ohakune and National Park that the ‘last spike’ was driven to mark the moment that the Wellington-Auckland link was officially created. And the silver spike gifted to the Prime Minister at the time, is still held in Te Papa’s collections. The completed North Island Main Trunk Railway was held up in its time – here and overseas – as a triumph of frontier engineering. More than that, though, its million-odd sleepers, countless “dogs” and endless fishplates were the product of sheer hard work.
Contractor Vol.32 No.11 December 2008 - January 2009 |
On Saturday, November 15 this year, a special ceremony took place at Maunganui-o-te-ao (Pokaka), just south of National Park. Here, representatives from Ontrack, KiwiRail and the Ruapehu District Council joined rail heritage groups and local schools, along with spokespeople from the NZ Transport Agency, the Rail and Maritime Transport Union, and the Historic Places Trust. They were there to celebrate the day – 100 years ago – when Prime Minister Sir Joseph Ward drove the last spike into the North Island Main Trunk railway, formally closing the two railheads of the Auckland-to-Wellington line.
It was 20 hours out of Wellington before that first train chuffed its way into Auckland, a journey that – by the mid-‘20s – had been shortened to just 14 hours. While this still seems a significant stretch in today’s modern transport terms, it was vastly preferable to the long sea trip or the challenging journey overland on primitive roads. 
The surveying of possible routes began in 1882. And, in 1884, a parliamentary committee opted for a central option over alternatives that looped through Taranaki or Hawke’s Bay. To this end, the government reached an agreement with Ngati Maniapoto leaders, which was vital to the success of the project, to open up the wilderness of the King Country to rail development. Until that time, this beautiful part of New Zealand had been off-limits to the European settlers. 
The bridgeworks designed by the Public Works Department, and built by the department and by engineering firms such as Andersons of Christchurch, were manufactured to the best standards of the day – in fact, they’re surprisingly modern. The steelwork for most of them was fabricated in pioneering settlements such as Mangaonoho and Makatote.
According to contemporary novelist Herman Foston: “On a Saturday night, following pay-day, drunkenness was at times appalling, and free fights were quite common”. The Methodist missionaries who rode out to those villages as they became more established were seriously following the spirit of John Welsey’s injunction to “Go to those who need you most”!
By May 1908, only a 24-km gap remained between Makatote and Ohakune. Excitement levels among the construction gangs were rising as the northern and southern teams worked themselves closer to each other day by day, and betting ran hot as to where and when the rails would actually meet.