5770 State Highway 4, Erua, Ruapehu
The third highest viaduct in New Zealand (78.6m), was constructed in 1908. It was one of the final links in the North Island Main Trunk Line.
**The main trunk unites the North Island
**The South Island main trunk was finished between Christchurch and Dunedin in 1878 and extended to Invercargill the next year but another three decades would pass before engineers and politicians could overcome King Country Maori and the forbidding central North Island terrain to complete the northern equivalent. Until then anyone wanting to travel from Auckland to Wellington either took a steamer down the East Coast or sailed from Onehunga to catch the Wellington train at New Plymouth. Christchurch firm J & A Anderson won the Makatote construction tender in 1905. The site was forbidding, 792 metres above sea level, amid thickly forested hills in the Ohakune District; and storms, floods and shortages of cement and skilled labour made things worse. Anderson set up a fully equipped workshop and brought in the 1238 tonnes of cement and 1016 tonnes of steel by wagon from the railhead. Using a cableway stretched across the gorge between timber gantries, they had the viaduct ready by July 1908. Soon trains began rolling uninterrupted between Auckland and Wellington, transforming travel in the North Island and turning the government railway into a modern mainline system. Passenger numbers soared from 3.5 million in 1895 to 13.3 million in 1913 and freight carried rose from two million tonnes in 1895 to almost 3.9 million tonnes in 1913. The Makatote Viaduct is not New Zealand’s longest railway viaduct but still offers some impressive statistics: it is 2262 metres long and 79 metres high. There are six concrete and five steel piers. Twenty-three major viaducts and 26 bridges made the North Island main trunk an impressive project by any standard. When the American Society of Civil Engineers awarded it its 27th International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark Award in 1997 the viaduct joined the Statue of Liberty, the Eiffel Tower and the Panama Canal on a very select list. Just south of the viaduct, the Last Spike Monument marks where Sir Joseph Ward drove the final spike into the line on 6 November 1908.
© 2002 Original text – Gavin McLean.
Further reading: Geoffrey Thornton, Bridging the Gap: Early Bridges in New Zealand 1830–1939, Reed Books, Auckland, 2001.
Celebrated New Zealand historical novelist Jenny Pattrick's 2017 novel 'Leap of Faith' is set at the Makatote Viaduct.
Patrick won acclaim for her book "The Denniston Rose" and it's sequel, set at a South Island heritage landmark.
Take the opportunity to pre-order a copy of the new book here.
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