Transport:
Auckland to Wellington with Kiwi Rail on the Northern Explorer
Saturday, 9 December 2023During the course of 2023 I’ve been on trains in 12 different countries – in date order in Australia, South Korea, Japan, Canada, USA, England, Spain, Belgium, France, Monte Carlo, Italy and Switzerland. There could have been a 13th – Bulgaria – but there was a group of us and a minibus worked out better. I added a 13th train country with New Zealand’s classic North Island run.

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The Man in Seat 61, the go to source for train information anywhere in the world, is an enthusiast, describing it as ‘an epic 681km (423 mile) journey across the interior of the North Island, through every kind of scenery from coastline to volcanoes to mountains, lush green farmland to thick New Zealand bush. It takes you the length of the historic North Island Main Trunk Railway, started in 1885 and completed in 1908, over feats of engineering such the Raurimu Spiral, Turangarere Horseshoe and Makatote Viaduct. It’s one of the world’s great railway journeys and one of my favourites, far more historically and economically significant than the branch line used by the TranzAlpine train on the South Island.’
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My train journey did, however, start with a minor problem.
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Finding the station.
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The less-than-convenient Auckland station location has always been unpopular, it doesn’t run from the central Britomart Station. Since my departure was early morning I decided to stroll by the station on the afternoon before.
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I broke the 11 hour trip at the halfway point, National Park, and went off to Whakapapa in the Tongariro National Park to do a little walking. Or tramping as it’s known in New Zealand.

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The line features quite a few feats of railway engineering, constructing a rail line across the North Island’s rugged terrain was a considerable challenge and took a long time – 35 years – to finish. Just before National Park there is the winding curves, tunnels and loop-over-itself Rairimu Spiral. Then there’s the mighty curve of the Turangarere Horseshoe and a bunch of viaducts, the Makatote Viaduct is the biggest, but nothing to see.

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The viaduct is just before Ohakune – ‘a place to be careful,’ because of some violent Maori event here. The Maori place names are often very colourful, closer to Wellington we pass through a number of places named after a Maori chief chasing his runway wife south. So you’ve got places with names like ‘disappointed’ because he realized he wasn’t going to catch up with her, she wasn’t going to come back.
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We also passed over the Whangaehu River, site of New Zealand’s worst ever train disaster. On Christmas Eve, 24 December, 1953, a volcanic mudflow or lahar from Mt Ruapehu swept away a bridge pier minutes before the Wellington to Auckland express train arrived. If the lahar had turner up earlier there would have been time to stop the train. Or if it happened later the train would have already passed through. As it was the locomotive and most of the carriages toppled into the river, killing 151 of the 285 passengers and crew.


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