Work began on the Kaimai railway deviation and the Kaimai tunnel between Waikato and the Bay of Plenty on 2 October 1965. On 24 February 1970, during the early stages of underground work, a cave-in trapped 12 of the workers. Eight men were rescued, but four lost their lives: James Smart, Alfred Thomas Leighton, Donald Alexander McGregor and Peter James Clarkson.
When Prime Minister R.H. Muldoon formally opened the tunnel on 12 September 1978 he also unveiled two plaques set into a boulder beside the Old Te Aroha Road, near the western end of the tunnel. One commemorated the opening of the tunnel; the other paid tribute to the four men who had died and others who had worked to complete the tunnel.
Sources: Report of Commission to Inquire into Disaster at Kaimai Tunnel, AJHR, 1970, C2A; The Kaimai Railway Deviation, Wellington, 1976, pp. 8, 16; ‘Historic Train Ride Fulfils 65-year-old Dream’, NZ Herald, 13/9/1978, p. 3; Bob Stott, Kaimai: The Story of the Kaimai Tunnel, Dunedin, 1978, pp. 35, 52.
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