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{{UKrail-header2|East Coast Main Trunk Railway|#FF0000}}
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{{Unreferenced|date=November 2006}}
{{UKrail-header2|East Coast Main Trunk Railway|#FF0000}}
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HamiltonHamilton is the centre of New Zealand's fourth largest urban area, and Hamilton City is the country's fourth largest territorial authority. Hamilton is in the Waikato Region of the North Island, approximately south of Auckland...
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Waikato RiverThe Waikato River is the longest river in New Zealand. In the North Island, it runs for 425 kilometres from the eastern slopes of Mount Ruapehu, joining the Tongariro River system and emptying into Lake Taupo, New Zealand's largest lake. It drains Taupo at the lake's northeastern edge, creates the...
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ClaudelandsClaudelands is a suburb directly to the east of central Hamilton, New Zealand, across the Waikato River. It is linked to the central city by the Claudelands road bridge and the East Coast Main Trunk Railway bridge.-History:...
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RuakuraRuakura is a semi-rural suburb of Hamilton City, in the Waikato region of New Zealand. The University of Waikato is nearby. The area lies to the east of urban Hamilton and to the west of State Highway 1B .The Waikato region is a major contributor to New Zealand's agricultural-based economy, and...
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Cambridge Branch|}}
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MorrinsvilleMorrinsville is a town in the Waikato region of New Zealand's North Island. The land for the town and surrounding farmland was purchased from Wirimu Tamehana,the king maker prior to the NZ land wars of the 1860s. The land then was very swampy...
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Thames BranchThe Thames Branch railway line connected Thames, New Zealand, with Hamilton and was originally part of the East Coast Main Trunk Railway. Part of the line between Morrinsville and Waitoa remains open and is in use as the Waitoa Industrial Line, connecting to the Fonterra Dairy Factory at...
|Former route via Paeroa}}
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WaltonWalton is a settlement in New Zealand. It is sited at the junction of Walton Road and Morrinsville Walton Road, in the Central Waikato Region.The area is predominantly dairying with some maize growing and meat chicken farming...
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Kinleith BranchThe Kinleith Branch railway line is located in the Waikato region of New Zealand. The line was constructed by the Thames Valley and Rotorua Railway Company, Taupo Totara Timber Company and rebuilt by the Public Works Department primarily to serve the Kinleith Mill in 1952...
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Kaimai TunnelThe Kaimai Tunnel is a railway tunnel through the Kaimai Range in the North Island of New Zealand. Since it was opened in 1978, it has held the title of longest tunnel in New Zealand, assuming this distinction from the previous title holder, the Rimutaka Tunnel...
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{{BS3||eABZrg|exHLUECKE|||Former route via Paeroa}}
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ApataApaţa is a commune in Braşov County, Romania. It is composed of a single village, Apaţa.At the 2002 census, 54.3% of inhabitants were Romanians, 40.7% Hungarians and 4.9% Roma. 37.8% were Evangelical Lutheran, 36.4% Pentecostal, 20.1% Romanian Orthodox and 2.4% had no religion.-Natives:*János...
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{{BS3||eHST|||Pahoia|}}
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OmokoroaOmokoroa is a small urban area in the Western Bay of Plenty District of New Zealand. The suburb is considered part of Greater Tauranga, , but is actually within the Coromandel Electorate...
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OtumoetaiOtumoetai is a major suburb of the city of Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand. Otumoetai is a name used to describe the central area of the peninsula and also the suburbs of Central Otumoetai, Brookfield, Bellevue, Pillans Point, Bureta, Cherrywood and Matua as a...
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Port of TaurangaPort of Tauranga is the port of Tauranga, New Zealand, the largest port in the country in terms of total cargo volume, and the second largest in terms of container throughput. with Port of Tauranga Ltd being the company operating it...
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TaurangaTauranga is the most populous city in the Bay of Plenty region, in the North Island of New Zealand.It was settled by Europeans in the early 19th century and was constituted as a city in 1963...
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PapamoaPapamoa is the largest suburb of Tauranga in the Bay of Plenty region on the northeastern coast of the North Island of New Zealand....
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Te PukeTe Puke is a town located 28 kilometres southeast of Tauranga in the Western Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand. It is particularly famous for the cultivation of kiwifruit...
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{{BS3||eHST|||Paengaroa|}}
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PikowaiPikowai is a rural community located near the beach on the shoreline of the Eastern Bay of Plenty in the North Island of New Zealand. It is located 34 km south east of Te Puke and 10 kilometres north west of Matata...
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MatataMatata can be:*Matata, a religious figure in Georgia *Matata, a town in New Zealand.*Matata, a New Zealand bird.*Matata, a bonobo.*J.C. Matata, a hip hop musician.*The latter part of the phrase hakuna matata....
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{{BS3||eHST|||Awakaponga|}}
{{BS3||eABZlf|exHLUECKE||Taneatua Branch|Mothballed}}
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The
East Coast Main Trunk Railway is a railway line in the
North IslandThe North Island is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the much less populous South Island by Cook Strait. The island is in area, making it the world's 14th-largest island...
of
New ZealandNew Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
, originally running between Hamilton and Taneatua via Tauranga, connecting the Waikato with the Bay of Plenty. The ECMT now runs between Hamilton and Kawerau, with a branch line to Taneatua from the junction at Hawkens. The line is built to narrow gauge of 1067 mm (3 ft 6 in), the uniform gauge in New Zealand.
Construction
In 1880, the
North Island Main Trunk Railway had reached
FranktonFrankton is a central suburb of the city of Hamilton, New Zealand. It is the site of the city's passenger railway station, a major industrial-commercial stretch of State Highway 1, and a commercial shopping area.- Tornado :...
,
HamiltonHamilton is the centre of New Zealand's fourth largest urban area, and Hamilton City is the country's fourth largest territorial authority. Hamilton is in the Waikato Region of the North Island, approximately south of Auckland...
, from
AucklandThe Auckland metropolitan area , in the North Island of New Zealand, is the largest and most populous urban area in the country with residents, percent of the country's population. Auckland also has the largest Polynesian population of any city in the world...
. From there, the line made its way to
MorrinsvilleMorrinsville is a town in the Waikato region of New Zealand's North Island. The land for the town and surrounding farmland was purchased from Wirimu Tamehana,the king maker prior to the NZ land wars of the 1860s. The land then was very swampy...
in October 1884,
Te ArohaTe Aroha is a rural town in the Waikato region of New Zealand with a population of 3,768 . It is 53 km northeast of Hamilton and 50 km south of Thames. It sits at the foot of 952-metre Mount Te Aroha, the highest point in the Kaimai Range....
in March 1886 and
PaeroaPaeroa is a small town in New Zealand, in the northern Waikato region of the Thames Valley. Located at the foot of the Coromandel Peninsula, it is close to the junction of the Waihou and Ohinemuri Rivers, 20 kilometres from the coast at the Firth of Thames...
in 1898. The route to
WaihiWaihi is a town in Hauraki District in the North Island of New Zealand, especially notable for its history as a gold mine town. It had a population of 4,503 at the 2006 census....
through the
Karangahake GorgeThe Karangahake Gorge lies between the Coromandel and Kaimai ranges, at the southern end of the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand's North Island. A sharply winding canyon, it was formed by the Ohinemuri River. State Highway 2 passes through this gorge between the towns of Paeroa, Waikino and Waihi...
was surveyed in the next few years with construction starting in 1900, with three bridges, including a
road-rail bridge and a kilometre-long tunnel, which has a 1:50 grade and took three years to build, being completed in 1904. The line between Paeroa and Waihi opened in November 1905. Surveys were undertaken for the route beyond Waihi in 1907 and construction started in March 1912, but was suspended in November of the same year. The work started again in 1914, but was suspended again in March 1917 because of a shortage of staff due to
World War IWorld War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. The works started again in 1918, and the railway through the Athenree Gorge opened to Tahawai in 1925 and
TaurangaTauranga is the most populous city in the Bay of Plenty region, in the North Island of New Zealand.It was settled by Europeans in the early 19th century and was constituted as a city in 1963...
in March 1925. The remaining length of line to
Te PukeTe Puke is a town located 28 kilometres southeast of Tauranga in the Western Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand. It is particularly famous for the cultivation of kiwifruit...
,
WhakataneWhakatane is a town in the eastern Bay of Plenty Region, in the North Island of New Zealand, and is the seat of the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. Whakatane is 90 km east of Tauranga and 89 km north-east of Rotorua, at the mouth of the Whakatane River.The town has a population of , with...
and
TaneatuaTaneatua is a small town in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand's North Island. It is officially defined as a "populated area less than a town". The 2001 New Zealand Census of Population and Dwellings found its population to be 750, a 14.7% decline since the previous census in 1996...
opened in 1928.
Original Intention of the rail line
Originally, the railway line was to run to Opotiki and through the Waioeka Gorge to
Gisborne-Economy:The harbour was host to many ships in the past and had developed as a river port to provide a more secure location for shipping compared with the open roadstead of Poverty Bay which can be exposed to southerly swells. A meat works was sited beside the harbour and meat and wool was shipped...
, linking with the
Palmerston North - Gisborne LineThe Palmerston North – Gisborne Line is a secondary main line railway in the North Island of New Zealand. It branches from the North Island Main Trunk Railway in Palmerston North and runs east through the Manawatu Gorge to Woodville, where it meets the Wairarapa Line, and then proceeds to...
. Work did begin, however due to two World Wars, an economic depression and an influenza epidemic, the railway was never completed.
Kaimai Tunnel Deviation
The Kaimai Railway Tunnel runs for 8896 m under the
Kaimai RangesThe Kaimai Range is a mountain range in the North Island of New Zealand. It is part of a series of ranges, with the Coromandel Range to the north and the Mamaku Ranges to the south. The Kaimai Range separates the Waikato in the west from the Bay of Plenty in the east.The highest point of the range...
, making it the longest tunnel in the
Southern HemisphereThe Southern Hemisphere is the part of Earth that lies south of the equator. The word hemisphere literally means 'half ball' or "half sphere"...
. Construction started from both sides of the range in 1969: the headings met in 1976 and the tunnel opened on 12 September 1978.
Closure of the Northern Route
After the opening of the Kaimai Tunnel, the route through the Karangahake Gorge to the eastern junction closed in 1978 and was dismantled in the 1980s. The railway from Morrinsville to Paeroa stayed open and continued (via the
Thames BranchThe Thames Branch railway line connected Thames, New Zealand, with Hamilton and was originally part of the East Coast Main Trunk Railway. Part of the line between Morrinsville and Waitoa remains open and is in use as the Waitoa Industrial Line, connecting to the Fonterra Dairy Factory at...
) to Thames until closure in 1991 and lifting in 1996/1997. The rail bridge at Te Aroha is now a walkway over the Waihou River; the route from the tunnel to Waikino through the Karangahake Gorge is now a walkway; from Waikino to Waihi the
Goldfields RailwayThe Goldfields Railway is a heritage railway that operates between Waihi and Waikino in the Bay of Plenty region of New Zealand's North Island. It operates over a section of track that was part of the East Coast Main Trunk Railway until the Kaimai Tunnel deviation made it redundant in 1978...
heritage line preserves the old railway; and State Highway 2 runs through the Athrenee Gorge along part of the original rail alignment.
Taneatua Express
When the line opened to its terminus at Taneatua, the
Taneatua ExpressThe Taneatua Express was an express passenger train operated by the New Zealand Railways Department that ran between Auckland and Taneatua in the Bay of Plenty, serving centres such as Tauranga and Te Puke...
ran from Auckland. The service took 12 hours, later reduced to 10½ hours, and ran two or three times weekly. The last train ran on 7 February 1959, and was replaced by a railcar service as far as Te Puke, due to negligible traffic to Taneatua. The railway struggled to compete with private cars and the service was withdrawn on 11 September 1967. Other than special excursions, there were no passenger services until 1991.
Kaimai Express
In 1991, the Kaimai Express started and ran to Tauranga. Along with the Geyserland Express it used the
Silver FernThis article is about the New Zealand railcar service and the railcars themselves. For other uses, see Silver Fern .The NZR RM class Silver Fern is a class of railcar in New Zealand. The three air-conditioned and sound-proofed 723-kW 96-seater diesel-electric twin-set railcars were built by...
railcars that had been used on the North Island Main Trunk Line. The first train ran on 9 December 1991, running a morning service from Tauranga to Auckland and afternoon service from Auckland to Tauranga, taking 3½ hours. The times changed in 2000 to enable the introduction of the Waikato Connection commuter service between Hamilton and Auckland. In 2001, it was announced that the service was too uneconomic to continue, and the last service was on 7 October 2001.
{{NZR Lines}}