Taonui Section

This section of road leads to and under the Taonui Viaduct.

Access to this part of the Ohakune Coach Road is difficult unless one knows where to go. Best to be guided.

The Historic Places Trust granted the Taonui Viaduct a Category 1 Classification (HPT Record No.9266) on March 27th, 2009.

The viaduct is 460 feet long, 115 feet above the Taonui Stream, has a 1:60 gradient and is built on a 10 chain radius curve.

It was completed in April 1908 and used until the new electrified alignment was opened in 1987.

Taonui Viaduct Section Ohakune Coach Road Underneath

Building materials were brought from Ohakune to the Taonui Viaduct site along the Ohakune Coach Road.

An article in the Wanganui Herald, February 15, 1908 describes how coach passengers walked across the Taonui Viaduct while the empty coach followed the road down to the stream, crossed the ford, then climbed up the other side where the passengers boarded the coach and continued their journey.

At the north end of the Taonui Viaduct is the famous “Just in Time” narrow railway cutting with near vertical sides.

The cutting had to be hurriedly widened to allow a Public Works test train to fit through, and further widened to allow the new Parliamentary Special carriages to pass.

Taonui Viaduct with DA Locomotive

The Parliamentary Special went through the cutting on August 7th, 1908, on its way to greet the U.S. Great White Fleet visiting Auckland.

Meeting the Great White Fleet

Workers lived on-site at the Taonui Viaduct, mostly surrounded by bush at about 2400 feet above sea level. Not pleasant during the cold winter.

At the northern end of the Taonui section near the park boundary, are the piers of the Haeremaere rail bridge and another narrow railway cutting.

Haeremaere Railbridge Piers

Historic Places Trust recently classified the whole of the railway corridor through this area. Any new historic discoveries associated with the North Island Main Trunk railway construction along this route will now be protected.