Earn a stamp at every stop of the line.
Aotearoa New Zealand · since 1863
Mountains, gorges, coasts and fjord-country — New Zealand renders itself through a train window. Three great journeys, one famous strait crossing, and a working railway that never stops moving.
01 — The network
From the first rails laid at Lyttelton in 1863, the network has grown into the steel spine of the motu — moving a quarter of the country's exports and millions of people, around the clock.
02 — Great Journeys of New Zealand
Three trains, three characters. Pick one and watch the page take on its scenery — the line it runs, the height it climbs, the country it crosses.
Coast to coast through the heart of the Southern Alps — plains, gorges, beech forest and the long green descent to the Tasman.
Ninety-two kilometres of open water separate the islands. The ferry sails it daily — out of Wellington Harbour, across the oft-tempestuous Cook Strait, and into the drowned valleys of the Marlborough Sounds. One of the most scenic ferry rides in the world, and it isn't even trying.
Rail and road roll straight onto the ship — cars, campervans, freight wagons and foot passengers all cross together. Dolphins pace the bow wave; the land falls away behind.
The last hour threads through Queen Charlotte Sound — green walls of bush rising straight out of the water — before the lines go ashore at Picton, where the Coastal Pacific is waiting.
03 — Freight & sustainability
While the carriages carry the cameras, the freight trains carry the country — milk, logs, cars, containers and groceries, from more than 300 customers' supply chains to ports and shops nationwide.
Rail generates on average 60% fewer emissions than heavy road freight. Every wagon that rolls is a truck that doesn't have to.
Every year, rail takes the equivalent of more than a million truck journeys off New Zealand's roads.
A BUSY MORNING OF STATE HIGHWAY 1 — STAYING HOME, THANKS TO A SINGLE FREIGHT TRAIN.
04 — Heritage
Rail built modern New Zealand — over swamps, rivers, mountains and fault lines. Many of today's crews are the third or fourth generation of their family on the line.
A horse-drawn tramway runs from the Dun Mountain copper mine to Port Nelson — New Zealand's first railway is a horse on rails.
The Christchurch–Lyttelton line opens through the Lyttelton tunnel — the first steam railway, and the start of everything.
After 23 years of work the North Island Main Trunk is completed — the crowning achievement of the railway age, Auckland to Wellington by rail.
The Otira Tunnel opens — 8.55 km beneath the Southern Alps, the longest in the British Empire, completing the Midland Line the TranzAlpine rides today.
After years of private ownership, rail returns to public ownership as KiwiRail — the nation's railway, held for the nation.
The Kaikōura earthquake buries the Main North Line in slips and lifts the seabed itself. Crews rebuild the line — the Coastal Pacific returns along a coastline literally remade.
4,500 people in more than 50 towns keep 16 million tonnes of freight, three great journeys and a famous ferry moving — for a better New Zealand.
05 — Final call
