This souvenir programme celebrates the opening of the railway line linking Taranaki with Auckland in 1932. In 1901 the minister of public works, Sir William Hall-Jones, ‘turned the first sod’ on a railway surveyed through the rugged inland hills to connect Stratford with the main trunk line. The 143-kilometre railway opened up some of the more isolated areas of the Taranaki hinterland around Whangamōmona and Ōhura, but it required 24 tunnels and 31 years to complete. The line was finally opened by Prime Minister George Forbes at Heao in 1932.
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