Rimutaka Tunnel Rimutaka Tunnel The Rimutaka Tunnel (officially Tunnel 2, Wairarapa Line) is a railway tunnel through New Zealand's Remutaka Range, between Maymorn, near Upper Hutt, and Featherston, on the Wairarapa Line. The tunnel, which was opened to traffic on 3 November 1955, is long. It was the longest tunnel in New Zealand, superseding the Otira Tunnel in the South Island until the completion of the Kaimai Tunnel (8.88 km, 5.55 miles) near Tauranga in 1978. Rimutaka remains the longest tunnel in New Zealand with scheduled passenger trains. The tunnel was built as part of a deviation to replace the costly Rimutaka
Cross Creek railway station the driver had to sound three short whistle blasts in rapid succession, at frequent intervals. No such emergency is known to have occurred. In considering alternatives for a railway between the Hutt Valley and the Wairarapa district to bypass the increasingly costly Rimutaka Incline, various proposals for a tunnel were considered that would have involved an eastern portal emerging at Cross Creek. Despite all the work done on investigating these ideas, the alignment eventually chosen was one that saw the tunnel emerging into the Wairarapa in a gully to the north. Once work commenced on the Rimutaka Tunnel, the fate