WELLINGTON

WELLINGTON On the trail of rails – a special heritage feature in Wellington's hills

Late 19th century train travellers endured transport over a tortuous landscape to get between the Wairarapa from Wellington.

WORDS: David Watt

Subject to the vagaries of high winds and rain, forest fires, and generally bleak conditions, it was a journey unlike anything endured today. The Remutaka rail route, as it became known, was a government-owned railway to all points north of Wellington through the Wairarapa. It was seen as of great importance in the nation’s development; a view reinforced by many visiting royalty, who were taken over the route, including HRH The Prince of Wales in 1921, the Duke and Duchess of York in 1927; the Duke of Gloucester in 1935 and Her Majesty the Queen and Prince Philip when they visited on their first royal tour of New Zealand in 1954.

Roll on to today, and with the train line now underground, the Remutaka Rail Trail is a magnificent recreational challenge and a place of exploration and relaxation away from the hussle-and-bussle of life in the city. It runs between Maymorn in Upper Hutt and Cross Creek in the Wairarapa, and follows 22 kilometres of the original railway line over the Remutaka Range, including the worldfamous incline part of the route. What is it that attracts hundreds of people week in week out to want to see this landscape, and to test their skills, walking, running, cycling? Adventurers and day walkers enjoy the history and stories told on interpretation signs along the route, the unique rest stop half-way at the Summit Station, and the challenges offered to those who want to test their physical skills. Thirty thousand walkers, runners and mountain bike riders use the route each year. The railway route was enabled by Julius Vogel’s Railways Act of 1870 and the line opened in October 1878. The route between the two purpose-built railway settlements at the Summit and at Cross Creek stations has a gradient which is particularly steep for any railway in the world, averaging 1 in 15. To handle this, six H class Fell engines were brought out from England to run solely between the Summit and Cross Creek. The Fell engines used a third rail which worked by adhesion to aid traction up the incline and to act as a brake coming down. There have been many stories told about hair-raising times coping with extreme weather conditions as the staff assisted to get their passengers safely to their destinations. In 1880, an accident occurred at Horseshoe Bend where carriages were blown off the rails with the loss of life prompting improvements in the arrangement of the Fell engines and the erection of windbreaks.

Petrol-driven Tin Hare railcars were put into service in the 1930s. They were designed to be fast on the flat and capable of managing the steep incline better than trains.

The route of the Remutaka Incline was expensive to run and maintain and was replaced in 1955 by a more direct rail tunnel to the Wairarapa. Houses and other buildings at the Summit and at Cross Creek stations were auctioned off, relocated, or demolished after 1955, leaving few remnants of communities that once lived at those posts for nearly 90 years. After the Incline ceased to be used for railway purposes, railway land from Kaitoke to the Summit Tunnel was vested

"...the Remutaka Rail Trail is a magnificent recreational challenge and a place of exploration and relaxation away from the hussle-and-bussle of life in the city."

Railway equipment left behind after the closure of the former railway route.

Remutaka Rail Trail Map.

in the Wellington City Water Supply Board, now the Greater Wellington Regional Council, and from Summit to Cross Creek in the Department of Conservation, formerly the NZ Forest Service. Meetings in the early 1980s between the Wellington Regional Council and regional environmental and recreation groups led to an agreement for the development of a walkway over the route of the former railway in recognition of the heritage values of the area.

I had the opportunity to team up with my good friend, the late Euan McQueen, former Assistant General Manager of Railways, Chair of the Rail Heritage Trust and a former Wellington Regional Councillor, to travel into significant parts of the rail heritage trail at his invitation. It was a wonderful experience. Euan was a font of information on the rail route and its surrounding landscape. He was a great companion on heritage trips throughout the Greater Wellington area, especially the historic townships in the Wairarapa, and could recount many stories about how people coped living in extreme conditions on the rail incline.

The efforts of the Department of Conservation and Greater Wellington Regional Council have provided a magnificent place for people to explore and enjoy the history of this once busy railway thoroughfare. Euan certainly expressed pride in the many people who have worked to preserve this important piece of our history. Watching the faces of dozens of cyclists, runners, walkers, and others just relaxing by streams, shows how this heritage landscape has quickly caught on with the many thousands of visitors who keep coming through the rail trail. To read more about its history and listing as a Historic Area go to the Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga website: www.heritage.org.nz/the-list/details/7511 n

Cyclists on the Remutaka Rail Trail. Credit: Department of Conservation