Rolling Thunder on the Main Trunk Line - Volume 1

Volume 1 of KiwiRail services in action in the heart of New Zealand's North Island, on the North Island Main Trunk Line - connecting NZ's two largest cities of Auckland & Wellington.
We focus on the section of track between Te Kuiti and Hunterville, where the grades begin to challenge every train that travels over it.
These shots were taken in the winter months of 2020 & 2021. I was hoping to complete this video with more drone footage, however due to the Covid-19 lockdown closing off my local Auckland borders since mid-August, this will now have to wait for Volume 2.
For more information and history on the NIMT, see en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_I...

[@tonymckeage1028]

Great Video thanks for sharing

[@n.f.railphotography7185]

Great video. My fav shots were 225S at Ohakune and 222 and 229 crossover at National Park

[@zanegracie39]

I enjoy watching what you post Finn, please keep on posting what you capture.

[@genesiscarlos437]

Muito legal este vídeo e os percursos por onde passam a ferrovia da nova Zelândia são lugares muito bonitos

[@Rawrnz]

good stuff :)

[@toasterlover3892]

Good vid, although I beleive Christchurch is bigger than wellington

[@Lindsay5137]

The Cantabs include that french village in their calculations

[@frederickmiles327]

Rebuilding and electrifying the central portion of the line in the 1975-85 period was a massive mistake and waste. The central North Island route has always been a massive mistake ( Taupo could have been served by extending the Kinleith Tokoroa branch) . The route thru Wairoru Ohakune and the Mangaweka viaduct is an area of massive volcanic and sesmic geological instability and the central route was belatedly built as a colonial means of effectively gaining political control of the indigenous population. The alternative route thru Taranaki and Forgotten highway area is on more stable ground, serves more population' and urban and farming development potential and with a maximum Levin to Marton shortcut not much longer. Had the construction of the line being contracted to US Southern Pacific corporation on the same basis as the Wellington Manawstu built by private interests it would have been thru from Wellington to Auckland 20 years earlier, 1889 rather 1909. As it was the NIMT was completed, just in time, a day before the Great White Fleet reached Auckland in 1909 to invade NZ for a week and assess in Theodore Roosevelt s eyes whether the vulnerable clueless nation without any defence should be incorporated into the USA