The Ōtira tunnel pierces the Southern Alps
- When
- 4 August 1923
- Where
- Ōtira
- Reach
- Several regions
An 8.5 km tunnel under Arthur’s Pass completed the transalpine railway between Christchurch and Greymouth, fifteen years after work began.
The West Coast had coal and timber and almost no reliable way to move either east. Boring began in 1908 and took far longer than anyone costed for; the original contractor abandoned the job and the government finished it. When it opened it was the longest tunnel in the British Empire and the seventh longest in the world. The gradient is steep enough that the line was electrified from the start, because steam locomotives would have filled the bore with smoke.
Regions affected
Sources
Written for this project from these references rather than copied from them. Follow a link to check the account against the original.
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