Pages tagged with: trains

All aboard! The North Island main trunk railway is 100 years old in 2008. Take a trip back in time to explore the epic construction of the line, the heyday of the steam passenger train and the place of the iconic railway refreshment room in New Zealand life.

The royal aeroplane lands in Westport. Scenes of crowds welcoming the Royal couple. Then we cut to scenes of the Royal train leaving for Christchurch via Arthur's Pass.

New Zealand's worst railway disaster occurred on Christmas Eve 1953, when the Wellington–Auckland night express plunged into the swollen Whangaehu River near Tangiwai. Of the 285 people on board, 151 were killed. The tragedy stunned the world and left a nation in mourning.

The camera pans along a dark blue locomotive engine. But this isn't a full-size engine, it is part of the Exhibition's miniature railway.

A history of the North Island railway main trunk line since the first through train left Wellington on 7 August 1908

For most second-class travellers, travelling the main trunk meant a long, sleepless journey on hard-backed seats, struggling to find 'elusive comfort with the NZR pillow'.

Refreshments are an essential and often talked about part of any train journey.

The wreckage of the Wellington–Auckland express and the remains of the railway bridge at Tangiwai, 25 December 1953

Rescue party at a wrecked carriage of the Wellington–Auckland express at Tangiwai

Passengers board the luxurious all-sleeper Silver Star at Wellington Station in 1974. Unfortunately, the service did not survive the decade.

Photographer Henry Winkelmann captured this mixed train with passenger carriages crossing Chasm Creek bridge in 1903

A fully laden coal train, about to leave for Westport.

A short history of the coal trains that ran on the Seddonville line.

Pupils from Seddonville attending high school in Westport travelled by train in 1945.

Powered by Ww571, a freight train carrying timber and coal crosses Chasm Creek bridge in December 1968

Gore railwaymen celebrated Armistice Day in November 1918 by decorating locomotive F 78 and wagon with wilting greenery, imitation sausages and a blunt chalked message to the Kaiser.

New Zealand Post stamps commemorating the centenary of the North Island Main Trunk Link in 2008.

Re-enactment of the Parliamentary special trip of 1908

Poster promoting the South Island train service

An invitation to the opening ceremony of the Johnsonville electric multiple-unit service in July 1938

'The Silver Spike', a documentary about the history of the North Island main trunk line shown on the New Zealand Film Unit's Pictorial parade, 7 November 1958

The luxury all-sleeper Silver Star service, introduced in 1971, revolutionised overnight travel on the North Island main trunk line.

In the late 1930s New Zealand Railways strongly promoted its own services in the pages of the New Zealand Railways Magazine.

This is one of AB 608’s memorial nameplates.

Passchendaele was a star of the New Zealand and South Seas Exhibition, and it hauled the Prince of Wales's royal train in 1920 and the Duke and Duchess of York’s in 1927.

The Daylight 'Limited' Express never achieved the iconic status of its overnight counterpart, the Night Limited, but it was a popular feature of the New Zealand Railway's summer timetable in the 1950s.

In the mid-1930s the Ab-class Pacifics were superseded on the main trunk by the giant 4-8-4 K-class locomotives – the pinnacle of steam power on New Zealand's railways

An inspection is made of the fallen bridge span and locomotive, 25 December 1953.

Map showing the expansion of the North Island rail network from 1880 to 1909.

The Ngakawau-Seddonville branch line was built solely for the transport of coal from mines near Seddonville to Westport harbour, where it was then transported around New Zealand by sea.

Last century, Governors-General used luxuriously appointed, special rail carriages.