Rimutaka Tunnel The first shot was fired in 1948 when the Public Works Department started the tunnel with bores of at the western end and at the eastern end. A contract for completing the tunnel was let to a consortium of Morrison Knudsen Inc. and Downer and Company on 7 May 1951. The work commenced at the west end in July 1951 and at the east end in August. The contract was expected to be completed in four years, but the headings met on 20 April 1954 with the concrete lining finished a month later. New Zealand Railways took possession of the
Rimutaka Incline closed. The smoke, the noise, the mad sooty passengers with open windows - this is what it was like to go up the Rimutaka Incline — and then there were the tunnels . . . Several options for an alternative to the Incline were considered in the 20th century, but it was not until after WWII that a route through a tunnel between Maymorn and Lucena's Creek was selected. Construction was started in 1948 by the Public Works Department and completed by a private contractor in 1955. The tunnel and deviation opened on 3 November 1955, five days after the