The Paeroa-Pokeno railway line or deviation in the upper

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-largest ...

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

between

Paeroa Paeroa is a town in the Hauraki District of the Waikato Region in the North Island of New Zealand. Located at the base of the Coromandel Peninsula, it is close to the junction of the Waihou River and Ohinemuri River, and is approximately 20 kilo ...

on the

East Coast Main Trunk The East Coast Main Trunk (ECMT) is a railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, originally running between Hamilton and Taneatua via Tauranga, connecting the Waikato with the Bay of Plenty. The ECMT now runs between Hamilton and Kawerau ...

(ECMT) and Pokeno on the

North Island Main Trunk The North Island Main Trunk (NIMT) is the main railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, connecting the capital city Wellington with the country's largest city, Auckland. The line is long, built to the New Zealand rail gauge of and ser ...

(NIMT) was a proposed route with construction started but abandoned. The proposal has been revived in recent years as part of a more direct route between Auckland and Tauranga.

History

A request for the line was made in 1905 and a route surveyed in 1926. Proposals were also made to shorten the route by a further , by starting it at

Manurewa Manurewa is a major suburb in South Auckland, New Zealand. It was part of Manukau City before the creation of the Auckland super city in 2010. It is located south of the Manukau, Manukau City Centre, and southeast of Auckland CBD. The subur ...

and serving

Hunua Hunua () is a small settlement in the rural outskirts of south Auckland, New Zealand. Hunua is east of Papakura, from Hunua Falls and lies at the foot of the Hunua Ranges, from where Auckland obtains most of its water supply. The literal tran ...

. Work started in 1938 on the line, which would have shortened the distance from Auckland to towns on the ECMT by . Minister of Public Works,

Bob Semple Robert Semple (21 October 1873 – 31 January 1955) was a union leader and later Minister of Public Works for the first Labour Government of New Zealand. He is also known for creating the Bob Semple tank. Early life He was born in Sofala, New ...

, turned the first sod on 27 January 1938 at

and about of the line had been started when work was abandoned in 1940. Work was still making slow progress in 1950, when a paragraph in the Ministry of Works annual report said 20 private crossings had been formed and metaled and of culverts installed. Most of the work was still in place in the 1960s, though very little is now visible. The

Kaimai Tunnel The Kaimai Tunnel is a Rail transport in New Zealand, 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 Tunnels in New Zealand#Railway Tunnels, longest tunnel, at , ...

relegated this section to ghost status; in August 1962 a deviation from Wahora to Apata passing under the Kaimai Range in a long tunnel was approved. Work on the tunnel did not commence until 1969. With the opening of the tunnel in 1978, the Paeroa –

Katikati Katikati is a town in New Zealand (North Island) located on the Uretara Stream near a tidal inlet towards the northern end of Tauranga Harbour, 28 kilometres south of Waihi and 40 kilometres northwest of Tauranga. State Highway 2 passes through ...

section of the East Coast Main Trunk was closed. The line to Paeroa was then part of the

Thames Branch The 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 Branch line, ...

, which closed north of Waitoa in 1991. Originally the line was to be the first part of the

East Coast Main Trunk Railway The East Coast Main Trunk (ECMT) is a railway line in the North Island of New Zealand, originally running between Hamilton and Taneatua via Tauranga, connecting the Waikato with the Bay of Plenty. The ECMT now runs between Hamilton and Kawerau ...

crossing the

Bay of Plenty The Bay of Plenty ( mi, Te Moana-a-Toi) is a region of New Zealand, situated around a bight of the same name in the northern coast of the North Island. The bight stretches 260 km from the Coromandel Peninsula in the west to Cape Runawa ...

to Opotiki and then inland to Gisborne via the

Moutohora Branch The Moutohora Branch was a branch line railway that formed part of New Zealand's national rail network in Poverty Bay in the North Island of New Zealand. The branch ran for 78 km approximately North-West from Gisborne into the rugged a ...

Revival

During the

2014 New Zealand general election The 2014 New Zealand general election took place on Saturday 20 September 2014 to determine the membership of the 51st New Zealand Parliament. Voters elected 121 members to the House of Representatives, with 71 from single-member electorates ...

the

New Zealand First New Zealand First ( mi, Aotearoa Tuatahi), commonly abbreviated to NZ First, is a nationalist and populist political party in New Zealand. The party formed in July 1993 following the resignation on 19 March 1993 of its leader and founder, Winst ...

political party included a proposal to build a Pokeno-Paeroa-Te Aroha-Kaimai tunnel railway line as part of its "Railways of National Significance" transport policy. The policy consists of completing the Pokeno-Paeroa line, re-using part of the now-closed Thames Branch between Paeroa and Te Aroha and a new link between Te Aroha and the western portal of the Kaimai tunnel, altogether creating a more direct link along a faster route, providing more capacity on the very busy rail freight corridor between Auckland and Tauranga, together with linking the towns of Maramarua, Ngatea, Paeroa and Te Aroha as potential future satellite suburbs of Auckland on a new commuter rail service route between Auckland and Tauranga.

References

Citations

Bibliography

External links