A nice Ray Mathewson photo of the overnight Wellington to Auckland (and vice versa) passenger train which ran between 1975 and 2004.  For the first four of those years it was a downmarket alternative to the Silver Star which was withdrawn in 1979.

Judging from the Google streetview below, taken from roughly the same spot, the road has not only been widened here, but its level has been raised in the intervening years.