NZHistory, New Zealand history online - railways

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Whangarei NZ Railways memorial plaque

This memorial plaque commemorating those of the Whangarei section of New Zealand Railways who died in the First World War is displayed at the Whangarei Museum and Heritage Park.

Credit:

Mike Mellor, 2014

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whangarei

Southland NZ Railways memorial plaque

A wooden memorial plaque commemorating those of the Invercargill section of New Zealand Railways who died in the First World War is stored in KiwiRail's offices in Invercargill. Its transcript is copied below.

ROLL OF HONOUR

MEMBERS OF THE STAFF WHO
MADE THE SUPREME SACRIFICE
FOR THEIR KING AND COUNTRY
DURING THE GREAT WAR 1914-1919

INVERCARGILL SECTION

BALLANTYNE A.S.   MELROSE R.M.
BOWLES W.B.   MENZIES S.
CAVANAGH J.   MILLAR J.S.
CLARK H.J.   MORRIS E.G.M
COCKBURN E.   McLEAN F.A.
COUPERTHWAITE P. McMAHON E.
DARRAGH J.A.   NICHOLSON A.J.
DAVIDSON J.H.   O'DONNELL D.
DICK H.J.   ROBERTS J.P.
FOTHERINGHAM W.   ROBERTSON A.M.
GRANT W.J.V.   SCULLY P.
GUNN W.G.   SELBY W.G.
HALLEY W.   SPOWART M.W.
HANSEN J.A. STRACHAN J.P.
HAYWARD A.R.   SUTHERLAND F.N.
HISLOP W.A.   SUTHERLAND F.V.
JOHNSTON J.E.   SUTHERLAND T.
KELLY F.G.   WALLACE J.R.
LAMBETH T.A.   WILKES R.
LAUDER G.S. WILLIAMS A.F.S.
MACKAY J.R.   WYATT A.

N.Z.RAILWAYS.

The names on this plaque were included on a more recent plaque, which formed part of a set of two metal commemorative plaques unveiled after the Second World War. These plaques are still on display at KiwiRail's offices in Invercargill. The transcript of the Second World War commemorative plaque appears below.

ROLL OF HONOUR
SOUTHLAND DISTRICT RAILWAY EMPLOYEES
WORLD WAR II 1939 - 1945

NAVY
HABERFIELD J K T

ARMY
BAILEY D A   GORDON J P   McHARDY L A
BARTER G E   HALL H J   MARTIN J K
BRENTON L G   ISITT F R   MATHESON V G
BRETT R F G JONES R O   NEWTON G H I
CAMPBELL S J   KIDD C W   SHIELDS J K
CUNNINGHAM J A   LEONARD J W   SUTHERLAND F J
DAVIS D G   McCORKINDALE N D   THURLOW J S W
FINN J E   McELHINNEY W J D YOUNG S E

AIR FORCE
BAIRD N K   JOHNSTONE J H
DAWSON S J   McDOUGALL J R
FINN J G   THOMAS C F

LEST WE FORGET

Credit:

Mike Mellor, 2014

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invercargill

Greymouth NZ Railways memorial plaque

This memorial plaque commemorating those of the Greymouth section of New Zealand Railways who died in the First World War is displayed in the Greymouth Railway Station. Its transcript is copied below.

ROLL OF HONOUR

MEMBERS OF THE STAFF WHO MADE
THE SUPREME SACRIFICE
FOR THEIR KING & COUNTRY
DURING THE GREAT WAR 1914-1918

GREYMOUTH SECTION

BARRY G.
FORD S.R.
KENYON B.D.
KILKENNY M.H.
LALOLI J.H.
RAMSAY R.C.
RASMUSSEN C.L.M.
SANGWELL W.H.P.
TAWHAI H.T.
WALLACE G.N.
WILLIS E.J.

N Z RAILWAYS

Credit:

Mike Mellor, 2014

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greymouth

Volunteers at Tangiwai disaster

At the scene of the railway disaster at Tangiwai, December 1953. A second-class railway carriage lies on its side with men standing alongside and on top of the wreck.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: PAColl-2388-05PAColl-4875-1-01-02
Photographer: Morrie Peacock
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Travel by train poster, 1948

From the 1920s the Railways Studio and Publicity Branch produced hundreds of eye-catching posters. In the 1940s and 1950s there was a high demand for railway services around public holidays, especially Christmas and Easter. In an age before most New Zealand families owned a car, the rail journey along the North Island Main Trunk Line was a popular way to get between Wellington and Auckland.

This poster from 1948 depicts a streamlined Ka locomotive - similar to the unstreamlined Ka 949, which was involved in the tragedy at Tangiwai.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: Eph-E-RAIL-1940s-02
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Destroyed railway bridge at Tangiwai

View of Tangiwai in the aftermath of the railway disaster of 24 December 1953, showing destroyed carriages on the banks of the river. A photographer stands on what remains of the bridge.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: PAColl-2388-05
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Police officer and search volunteers at Tangiwai

A police officer and volunteers at the scene of the railway disaster at Tangiwai, December 1953.

Credit:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: PAColl-4875-1-01-09
Photographer: Morrie Peacock
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image.

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Makatote Viaduct

Makatote Viaduct (1908)

The main trunk unites the North Island

The South Island main trunk line linked Christchurch and Dunedin by 1878 and was extended to Invercargill the next year, but another three decades would pass before engineers and politicians could overcome the opposition of King Country Māori and the forbidding central North Island terrain to complete the northern equivalent. Until then anyone wanting to travel from Auckland to Wellington either took a steamer down the east coast or sailed from Onehunga to catch the Wellington train at New Plymouth.

Christchurch firm J. & A. Anderson won the Makatote construction tender in 1905. The site was forbidding, 792 m above sea level amid thickly forested hills. Storms, floods and shortages of cement and skilled labour made things worse. Anderson set up a fully equipped workshop and brought in 1238 tonnes of cement and 1016 tonnes of steel by wagon from the railhead. Using a cableway stretched across the gorge between timber gantries, they had the viaduct ready by July 1908. Soon trains began rolling uninterrupted between Auckland and Wellington, transforming travel in the North Island and turning the government railway into a modern main-line system. Passenger numbers soared from 3.5 million in 1895 to 13.3 million in 1913 and freight carried rose from 2 million tonnes in 1895 to almost 3.9 million tonnes in 1913.

The Makatote Viaduct is not our longest railway viaduct, but still offers some impressive statistics: it is 2262 m long and 79 m high. There are six concrete and five steel piers. Twenty-three major viaducts and 26 bridges made the North Island main trunk an impressive project by any standards. When the American Society of Civil Engineers awarded the line its 27th International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark Award in 1997, it joined the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower and the Panama Canal on a very select list. Just south of the viaduct, the Last Spike Monument marks the spot where Sir Joseph Ward drove the final spike into the line on 6 November 1908.

Further information

This site is item number 78 on the History of New Zealand in 100 Places list.

On the ground

Motorists on State Highway 4 between Pokaka and Erua can view the viaduct from a rest stop beneath the southern piers, or from the Makatote Scenic Reserve at the northern end of the viaduct.

Websites

Books

Neill Atkinson, Trainland: how railways made New Zealand, Random House, Auckland, 2007
Geoffrey Thornton, Bridging the gap: early bridges in New Zealand 1830-1939, Reed Books, Auckland, 2001

Credit:

Text: Gavin McLean, 2013

Main image: possumgirl2 (Flickr)

Other images: David Maciulaitis (Flickr) and Materialscientist (Wikimedia)

Historic images:

Alexander Turnbull Library
References: APG-0451-1/2-G (photographed by Albert Percy Godber) and WA-11439-F (photographed by Whites Aviation)
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of their images.

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Date established:

1908

Lyttelton Rail Tunnel

Lyttelton Rail Tunnel (1867)

Extraordinary engineering

In 1850 settlers sweated over the steep, narrow Bridle Path from Lyttelton to the swampy site of Christchurch. Heavy goods had to be unloaded at Lyttelton and put aboard small craft that were sent across the perilous Sumner bar to Ferrymead, near the mouth of the Heathcote River. Here they were unpacked again and put into wagons, pulled from late 1863 by New Zealand’s first steam locomotives, which ran to Christchurch. Ferrymead was just a stopgap; Lyttelton was the only logical deepwater port.

People talked about a tunnel almost before the Four Ships finished discharging. Action replaced talk after William Moorhouse won the provincial superintendency in 1857. ‘Railway Billy’ convinced his council to think big and build one of the longest tunnels yet contemplated (2.6 km), and the first in the world to go through the walls of an ancient volcano – to link two townships with just 3000 inhabitants. George Stephenson’s nephew, G.R. Stephenson, prepared the estimates, but when British contractors demanded more money, Moorhouse sailed to Melbourne to sign up Holmes and Co. On 17 July 1861, in appalling weather, he turned the first sod of the ‘Canterbury railway tunnel’. Being Christchurch, it was a hierarchical knees-up. While the elite banqueted in a large marquee, 1500 sodden folk rioted over the quality of the beer provided for them.

The work was arduous. Miners prepared the tunnel faces with picks and long chisels, fired gunpowder charges and then returned to load the spoil into horsedrawn wagons. The two faces crept towards each other at a rate of about 3 m a week. It was stuffy and wet – in one very bad stretch an iron shield had to be built over the miners so that they could keep working despite the water. The breakthrough was made in 1867. Night-shift workers still had three years of finishing-off ahead of them, but by December passenger trains were running.

After electric trains entered service, tunnel trips no longer included ‘smoke-filled carriages, grime and the odd cinder in the eye’. This is no carefully tended shrine to Victorian progress; it is an important part of the country’s transport infrastructure, as the hideous off-ramps that bracket the Lyttelton portal show. The old tunnel withstood the 2010/11 earthquakes and as the coal wagons and container flats rattling through the entrance show, it still links port and plain. A complementary 2-km road tunnel opened in 1964.

Further information

This site is item number 33 on the History of New Zealand in 100 Places list.

Websites

Book

W.H. Scotter, A history of Port Lyttelton, Lyttelton Harbour Board, Christchurch, 1968

Credit:

Text: Gavin McLean, 2013

Main image: Matthew25187 (Wikimedia)

Other images: Gavin McLean (2001) and Schwede66 (Wikimedia)

Final historic image:

Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference: PAColl-6407-57
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Matauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of their images.

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lyttelton