Lyttelton Rail Tunnel - History - Operations

Operations

At the time the colonial government decided to implement a national railway gauge, they made exceptions for some existing railway systems that had already been laid using different gauges, generally on the proviso that any new track was to the national gauge. One such system was the railways of the Canterbury Province, which were brought under the jurisdiction of a special act of parliament, the Canterbury Gauge Act. This act made provision for the regauging of existing lines by laying a third rail between the two existing rails to allow for the use of narrow gauge rolling stock on the same track. Rather than incur the inconvenience of this approach, the provincial government decided to lay a new narrow gauge line beside the existing broad gauge line from Addington to Lyttelton. The narrow gauge line reached Christchurch on 7 March 1876 and Lyttelton 34 days later.

The nuisance of smoke in the tunnel created by steam locomotives prompted attempts by the Railways Department to alleviate the problem. In August 1909, they had locomotive Wf 433 converted to oil burning to reduce the amount of smoke produced. The locomotive was used for a trial period to haul 450 ton goods trains through the tunnel. Though the modification proved to be efficacious, the benefit did not outweigh the cost involved and the idea was abandoned.

The second attempt was to electrify the line from Christchurch to Lyttelton. Following the successful electrification of the Otira tunnel in 1923, and a report recommending electrification of the suburban networks of New Zealand’s four main cities, it was decided to electrify the Christchurch – Lyttelton route using the same system as had been used at Otira. Fortunately, because the tunnel had originally been built to accommodate the provincial railways' larger broad gauge rolling stock, the tunnel was already sufficiently large enough to accommodate the overhead catenary without modification. The first electric train ran from Christchurch to Lyttelton on 14 February 1929. Electrification lasted until 1970, by which time the EC class electric locomotives had reached the end of their working lives. With the decline in rail services after the opening of the Lyttelton road tunnel in 1964, and with dieselisation almost complete and only a few steam locomotives left in revenue service, the electrification system was scrapped in favour of diesel haulage.