Overview
On 6 November 1908, Prime Minister Joseph Ward drove the last spike into the North Island main trunk railway, and was presented with this silver spike to commemorate the event. Perhaps a collective sigh of relief was then breathed, because after decades of disputes and difficulties, the project was finally finished!
Julius Vogel, the Prime Minister in 1870, was one of a number of people who believed New Zealand needed a main trunk line to connect the North Island’s biggest settlements, Auckland and Wellington. So in 1872 he brought English engineer John Brogden over to New Zealand to start work on it.
Brogden and his team began laying rails to connect Auckland and Mercer, while another crew laboured on a track from Mercer to Hamilton. By 1880, they had reached Te Awamutu. Work also began at the other end, and a line from Wellington began to make its way north. By the mid 1880s, it had reached New Plymouth.
The idea was that the track from Wellington and the track from Auckland would meet in the middle. But where exactly was the middle? The Auckland line could extend down to New Plymouth. Or it could go through Hastings instead, and the Wellington line could diverge so as to meet it there... Then again, there was a third option. This one required a huge amount of new track, and it would cut through rugged terrain hitherto unexplored by Pākehā, but it had many advantages: they could go straight down the centre of the North Island.
Debate raged! Everyone wanted the railway line to go through their town.
As North Islanders seemed to be too biased to decide which route the track should take, a parliamentary committee of South Islanders was appointed to have the final say. This committee wanted to ascertain exactly how feasible a track straight down the middle of the island would be, so they commissioned John Rochfort to survey the area in detail, and make recommendations as to how such a track could be built.
Rochfort was a senior surveyor with thirty-three years experience. He and his team left Marton on 26 June 1883. Their expedition to survey this rough terrain was fraught with difficulty. Rain and wind hampered them, and they met resistance from Māori iwi who did not want the railway. Rochfort finally finished his report in February the following year. It was good enough for the committee, and they decided the central route was the way to go.
However, it would still be twenty-five years before the track would be completed: protest groups continued to make their voices heard, and the track itself was difficult to lay.
Engineers and labourers worked in rough conditions and bitter weather. On the southern end of the track, they spanned huge ravines by building massive viaducts. Meanwhile in the north, the first obstacle to overcome was a ridge halfway between Te Kuiti and Taumaranui. The engineer’s solution was a kilometre long tunnel. But there was a worse problem to come – how were they to lay a line from the valley of the Whanganui River to the Waimarino Plateau? It seemed too steep! A Public Works engineer, Robert West-Holmes, came up with the answer – and designed what is now a renowned feat of engineering – the Raurimu Spiral. This piece of track incorporates a complete circle, two tunnels, and three horseshoe curves.
Finally, at Manganui-o-Te-Ao, about 17.5 kilometres north of Ohakune, Prime Minister Ward drove in the last spike. To commemorate the event, he was gifted with this silver railway spike, made by George Thomas White, a fine English jeweller who now lived in Christchurch.
Today the main trunk line is still a cheap way for people to get from A to B within the North Island. Travellers can make a one way trip between Auckland and Wellington in a single day or a single night. And if you want to catch a glimpse of the country’s backblocks, the fields, rivers, valleys, and tiny towns that you will never see from the highway, the daytime trip is a must.
Text originally published in Tai Awatea, Te Papa's onfloor multimedia database (1998).