Lyttelton rail tunnel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Lyttelton Tunnel | |
 |
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| Heathcote portal of the Lyttelton rail tunnel in Christchurch. | |
| Info | |
|---|---|
| Line | Main South Line |
| Location | Christchurch, New Zealand |
| Coordinates | |
| Status | Open |
| System | Toll rail freight |
| Start | Lyttelton |
| End | Heathcote |
| Operation | |
| Opened | 1867-12-09 |
| Owner | ONTRACK |
| Operator(s) | Toll |
| Technical | |
| Line length | 2.595 km |
| Gauge | 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) |
The Lyttelton Rail Tunnel links the city of Christchurch with the port of Lyttelton in New Zealand. It was one of the earliest railway lines built in New Zealand and is now part of the Main South Line. Its opening caused the closure of New Zealand's first railway line, the Ferrymead Railway.
Contents |
[edit] Background
The difficulties that Christchurch people had to transport their goods into and from Lyttelton was the reason the Lyttelton Tunnel was built. Before the tunnel was built they would have had to pay for their goods to be shipped from Lyttelton Harbour then around the Godley Heads, from there into the Avon and Heathcote river estuary. Problems this caused were that ships kept turning over in the surf or getting stuck on the Sumner Bar, causing people to lose their possessions or they would have had to go over the newly built Sumner Road but that would take time and large weights could not be carried over the Port Hills.
With the expansion of the wool industry, more pressure was applied to make easier and faster transporting of goods to Lyttelton Harbour. The wool trade also returned the Canterbury Provincial Council greater revenues through taxes, which were able to be put toward a transport link from Lyttelton to Christchurch.
[edit] Construction
The option they went with was the Superintendent of Canterbury Province William Sefton Moorhouse's plan of building a tunnel from Lyttelton to Christchurch, with the public voting 727 for the tunnel and 352 against. There was a lot of controversy about the tunnel, all the way up to when it was finally opened on the 9 December 1867. The Canterbury Provincial Council hired a British contractor to build the tunnel but he gave up quoting it was too hard with too much volcanic rock.
But when Edward Dobson wrote a report saying that the rock wouldn't be as much of a problem as they thought because most of the volcanic rock would be hollow and full of dirt. This would make it easier to drill through, he was then backed up by Julius von Haast, so Moorhouse had to find a new contractor for the job of building the tunnel, he left for Melbourne, Australia were he found another contractor who then started work on the Heathcote portal.
