The Lyttelton rail tunnel opens
- When
- 9 December 1867
- Where
- Lyttelton · Ōhinehou
- Reach
- Several regions
A 2.6 km bore through the rim of an extinct volcano finally joined Christchurch to its port, and was the first tunnel driven through the walls of a volcano anywhere.
Canterbury had the awkward problem of a fine harbour separated from its plains by the Port Hills. Settlers had carted goods over the Bridle Path on foot and by packhorse since 1850. The provincial government gambled a great deal of its borrowing on a tunnel, and the engineering was genuinely novel: no one had driven a railway tunnel through the wall of a volcano before. The breakthrough came in 1867 and trains were running to Lyttelton by December, turning Christchurch into the distribution centre for the whole of the plains.
Regions affected
Sources
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