Rimutaka Tunnel fire suppression equipment, following the Pike River Mine disaster enquiry. Initially New Zealand DC class locomotives were used for the Wairarapa Connection, then from 2015 the DFB version of the New Zealand DF class locomotive (1979). The tunnel is used for freight from the Wairarapa to Wellington, notably logs from local pine forests and wood products from the Juken New Zealand Ltd timber mill at Waingawa, just south of Masterton. 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.
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