New Zealand's North Island main trunk railway: 1870–1908

Completion of the Union Pacific railway in the USA in 1869 was seen to hold lessons for New Zealand's colonial government. A policy of immigration and public works funded from loans was instituted in 1870. A network of railways would be built to open up land for settlement. One such was the North Island main trunk line, linking Auckland and Wellington – the two main centres in the North Island. It took until 1908 to complete the 680km route. As described in this paper, building the line was a major adventure as natural and man-made difficulties were gradually overcome. Location surveyors often worked at risk of their lives as not all Maori accepted the agreement between tribal leaders and the government that work could start. For many years government was uncertain where the best route lay. The engineers had to surmount very difficult topography, the geology of very young rocks and scarcity of funding. Eventually, after locally trained engineers overcame the worst engineering problems, the date that the first through train could run became the focus of a wager between the minister of public works and one of his resident engineers.