KiwiRail is celebrating 150 years of railways. A travelling exhibition started in Auckland and is travelling down the two islands to Invercargill. It was in Christchurch today. The exhibition consisted of two diesel engines, a passenger carriage, a café carriage, and displays showing the history and the importance of rail today.
It is interesting that rail started so soon after European migrants arrived in New Zealand. Planned immigration from Britain to Christchurch started in 1850. The first railway was in 1863, just 13 years later. This was a short railway from Christchurch to Ferrymead which is now a suburb in Christchurch. Soon after that, a tunnel was built to link the railway to the port in Lyttelton. It didn’t take long before railways were built around the coast in the South Island.
However, the line between Wellington and Auckland took another 23 years to build, partly because some of the land was Maori land. The government had to get permission from Maori iwi. New Zealand’s geography also made it difficult to build a railway line. There are forests, mountains and rivers in the centre of the North Island. This line has more than 90 bridges and tunnels.
Today, there are only 3 passenger lines between cities although 400,000 commuters use trains every day to go to work in Auckland and Wellington. Trains are mostly used to carry freight: logs, coal, shipping containers and milk (in special tankers).
Listen to March 6th 2010 to hear more about KiwiRail.
Vocabulary
- planned immigration – organised by the New Zealand Company
- iwi – tribe
- commuters – people who travel a long distance to work every day
- freight – goods
Questions
How do you think people travelled around the country before railways?
How did railways improve their lives?
How did men build tunnels in the 19th century?