[1] The Raurimu Spiral is 6.8 kilometres (4.2 mi) from the station, and rises 200 metres (660 ft) to the National Park railway station on the North Island Volcanic Plateau; on a direct line this would be a gradient of 1 in 24, but the Raurimu Spiral reduces the gradient to a (still steep) 1 in 52.

In 1906 the administrative office of the northern section of the Public Works Department (PWD) which was building the NIMT was moved to a group of "tents and huts" at Raurimu, and at its zenith the Raurimu community numbered a thousand men, women and children.

[2] Trains started running to Raurimu from 13 December 1906.

[4] Trains started running to the next station at Waimarino (National Park) from 23 December 1907.

[5] The NIMT was opened to through Auckland to Wellington trains from 9 November 1908,[6] though only southbound expresses stopped at Raurimu.