The work included a wide ledge in the side of Wooded Peak, drainage and six bridges. The route of the next section from Brook Street to the Wairoa Saddle was debated amongst the engineers, but they eventually settled on a gradient of 1:18 for the first with the rest at 1:20. This was divided into seven sections that were put to tender and let on 3 June 1861 to, amongst others, the contractors Hale, Vercoe and party; John Ward and John Mitchell; John Brown and George Cummins; and W. Martin and John Avery. The company advertised for a supply of 20,000 sleepers after rejecting a trial in which sleepers had been cut from trees adjoining the rail formation. The price they were quoted in response was £1 per hundred more than the price they had earlier received for sleepers supplied from their own land, but having spent two months on the tender process they decided to proceed with the tenders received from the sawmills. Approximately 24,000 sleepers were required. On 17 August the Act authorising the construction of the railway on public lands was passed. It was based on earlier bills from the Provincial Council and one of 1860 which was withdrawn over the issue of the route of the line. The act allowed the company to begin construction of the line from the incline section through Nelson, following Brook, Tasman, Manuka, Alton, Hardy, and Rutherford Streets, and along the shoreline on Haven Road to the port. Three contracts for this section were let in late August 1861 to contractors Mark Blythe and Robert Carter. Work on the town section was completed within four months. At around the same time work commenced on the formation between the incline and the port, Dudderidge Gibbs submitted a successful tender for track laying work on the incline section. This work started on 4 September 1861, but it was soon clear that it would not be completed by the end of the year as expected. Eager to begin revenue traffic on the line, the company dismissed Gibbs despite his protestations, and continued the work itself on 23 September. The final shipment of rails arrived on 25 October 1861, numbering 2,314, including 26 casks of bolts. The last rail was laid in January 1862. The railway was officially opened on 3 February 1862. Around £75,000 had been spent, of which approximately a third went into the construction of the railway. At noon, horse-drawn paired wagons left the company depot in Brook Street for the port, with the Nelson Brass Band being seated in the first pair of wagons.