Story: Railways

The little H-class Fell engine went up and down the Remutaka incline railway for 77 years from 1878. The line closed in 1955 when the 8.8-kilometre tunnel through the mountain range was opened. The Fell locomotive had a special set of horizontal inner wheels which gripped a raised centre rail, pulling it up the steep incline on the Remutaka Range’s eastern flank, where the railway line climbed 265 metres in 4 kilometres.