Talk:Kaimai Tunnel

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Tunnel length
An edit on 18 February 2021 altered this article to state that the length of the tunnel is 9.025 km rather than 8.879 km. This edit might have been in good faith, but no source is provided and I note that the editor who made the change, IndiaRailMan, has received numerous warnings for adding unverified content and has been blocked from editing indefinitely, with a request to overturn the block denied.

The sentence in the introductory paragraph that specifies the tunnel's length does have a citation, but this reference to Bob Stott's 1978 booklet predates IndiaRailMan's edit. The page cited, p.4, does not give the length of the tunnel, and elsewhere in the booklet Stott consistently rounds the length to 8.9 km. I can find no source, either online or in my library of NZ railway books, that supports the length being 9.025 km.

I have, consequently, reverted this detail to 8.879 km, as attested in Te Ara: The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand and other sources. Axver (talk) 10:19, 10 March 2023 (UTC)


 * Thank you for correcting that. Kiwirail map's measuring tool shows the tunnel running from 63.34km to 72.2km, a distance of 8.86km. The New Zealand railway and tramway atlas, John Yonge, 1993, Quail Map Co, shows 8,850m and is the source used in the Deutsch language article. The Press article on ‘Open-day’ for the $S6M Kaimai Tunnel said the the hole through was at 4.07km and 4.78km from the portals, a total of 8.85km, though it rounds the length to 8.9km.Johnragla (talk) 19:21, 10 March 2023 (UTC)
 * The figures in the Press article are also included in Stott's book (the one time he does not round to 8.9 km) and in a Ministry of Works pamphlet in my collection. The Stott and MoW publications, though, could be read to imply that these were the distances when holethrough was about to be performed—i.e. that to achieve holethrough they punched through the final few metres. I wonder if it might be worth adding a note to the intro that some sources give slightly varying lengths between 8.85 and 8.9 km? I often defer to the Quail Map but I note that, for instance, Fulton Hogan give the 8,879 m figure on their page about doing remedial work on the tunnel, as does the government's recent NZ Rail Plan on page 26. Axver (talk) 07:39, 15 March 2023 (UTC)

Water inflow
Reasonable progress was made from the eastern end of the tunnel once the TBM had been reassembled there in April 1972. Though the wear on the machine caused by its use at the western end caused some mechanical problems, progress of up to 15 metres (49 ft) per 8-hour shift was achieved, though this was considerably reduced in wet areas. With up to 600 m³ of water flowing through the tunnel walls, continuous pumping was required to avoid flooding.

The figure of 600 cubic metres is meaningless without a time interval specified.

StuZealand (talk) 08:35, 16 October 2023 (UTC)