ISBN10: 0908573006, ISBN13: 9780908573004, [publisher: New Zealand Railway and Locomotive Society, Wellington] Hardcover The sub-title to Norman Cameron's book, "The Railway Conquest of the Rimutakas," provides an indication that constructing a railway linking the NZ capital, Wellington, to the rich pastoral lands of the Wairarapa lying to the north, but over a range of rugged, steep, bush clad and difficult hill country battered by extremes of weather, including tempest scale winds, was no easy task. The author's account of the concept of the railway, its planning and surveying, its years of construction, are given detailed and comprehensive treatment in this fine book. Thoughts of providing a rail link from the port city of Wellington to the fertile hinterland on the other side of the Rimutaka Range emerged in the late 1850s. With political and economic hurdles to be crossed it was the 1870s before four possible routes for the line were examined, but a further survey produced the line of rail that was eventually adopted. When construction began short sections of the line were put out to contract with the project taken to the range summit over rugged, sometimes swampy terrain, requiring several substantial bridges, embankments and tunnels and by 1877 the line had reached the range summit. Meanwhile, laying the line from Masterton to the inland foot of the range had been progressed. It was the line from the summit to the Wairarapa link that was to ...