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 were the Tauwharenikau Route, Mr Sinclair’s Route, a coastal route and the Pakuratahi Route. While the government was conducting its surveys, Wellington Province Superintendent William Fitzherbert instructed his Provincial Engineer, Charles O’Neill, to investigate the possibility of a railway through the Rimutaka Valley (the route of the road between Featherston and Upper Hutt), with a tunnel through the dividing range. The survey was carried out between May and 21 July 1871, and O’Neill reported that a tunnel 130 chains (2.6 km) long would be required, with the line rising at 1 in 60 from the Pakuratahi to the tunnel then