New Zealand by rail
Majestic steam engines captivated a young Denis Dwyer. The author tells Jimmy Ellingham of his love of rail and travels around New Zealand.
Romance, nostalgia and tonnes and tonnes of gritty metal. There’s something about trains that captivates us as they glide on, their magic carpets made of steam, as Arlo Guthrie put it.
New Zealand’s canon of railroad songs isn’t as majestic, but Taumarunui on the Main Trunk Line invokes a time when steam was king, when the rail network ruled.
It’s less so now, but there are still busy commuter lines, stunning scenic tours and heritage and miniature railways dotted about the countryside, including in Palmerston North’s Esplanade.
Palmerston North author Denis Dwyer knows these routes well, having travelled many of them down the years.
His latest offering, New Zealand Adventures by Rail, is a walk through these trips, with wry asides, amusing anecdotes and interesting facts thrown in.
Dwyer starts his tour on one familiar to red-rimmed Palmerstonians seaking a day of business or pleasure in Wellington, the Capital Connection.
From here he travels the Wellington suburban lines. He tries Auckland’s ultra-modern network too, as well as the Northern Explorer from Auckland to Wellington and across the spectacular viaducts of Rangitı¯kei. South Island trips are no less memorable, whether they’re along the Kaiko¯ ura coast or over the Southern Alps.
‘‘Rail is on a bit of a roll,’’ Dwyer tells Stuff. ‘‘I think it’s spectacular, particularly old steam trains.
‘‘There are so many people who don’t want to give steam away – thousands of them. It’s so expensive to keep them going, but there’s never a shortage of volunteers. There’s a real passion within some people for rail.’’
Then there are the environmental benefits of rail. All heady stuff after the dark days of the post-privatisation 1990s and fat cats Fay Richwhite.
Other people use rail for work and convenience, such as the groups of Capital Connection regulars who merrily while away the trip enjoying the company of fellow travellers. Others type furiously into laptops, their working day not yet done when the train leaves Wellington after 5pm, or beginning at dawn in Palmerston North.
Dwyer describes his trips in intricate detail, focusing less on the technical aspects and more on the characters who finds themselves locked in a carriage together.
He tells of good-natured guards, of tourists sleeping through the beauty of the Christchurch to Greymouth Tranz Alpine, of the man who asks Dwyer not once, but twice if he can steal some of his potato chips.
‘‘There’s always things happening on a train. You’re in a position where you can sit back and observe it all.’’
Every journey also turns into a history lesson, where we learn of crashes, trips of yesteryear when hundreds of people would pile aboard a train for a day out picnicking, and of the men who worked in terrible conditions to build our railways.
It’s mind-boggling to think of men building the grand viaducts, suspended high in the air. It’s equally mind-boggling to read of one chap walking across one on the handrail. No wonder Dwyer dedicates his book to those who constructed New Zealand’s rail networks.
As for his favourite trip: ‘‘The Tranz Alpine is an incredible journey. You’re going from one coast to another and through a mountain range and back in one day, if you want.
‘‘The viaducts are fantastic. They are really industrial works of art. You’re so high on some of them and you can just see forever,’’ Dwyer says.
‘‘I think one of the things about rail travel, if you want a little bit of the history of it, it definitely enriches the trip.’’
He also enjoys the experience of riding converted golf carts on the old rail line through King Country and northern Taranaki, and the Dunedin to Oamaru heritage trip, hugging the South Island’s attractive east coast. ‘‘You’ve got views you can’t see any other way. You can’t see them from the road – the road doesn’t go that way.’’
It’s not too far away from where it all began for Dwyer. His love of trains dates back to when, as a boy of 6 or 7, he travelled from Oamaru to Invercargill by rail.
‘‘I think for a lot of people, it’s the nostalgia of these trips that gets them.’’
That includes people along the railway line who stare at the sight of a passenger service. Many wave too. ‘‘People never wave at buses.’’
Dwyer and his wife, Dale, have expanded their rail horizons around the globe – London to Edinburgh, Paris to Vienna, and the great journeys up and down and across Australia.
But it’s the New Zealand trips he’s compiled for print. Many of them were made over a 10-month period, with much time spent making notes of the sights, sounds, smells and characters. Other trips are from times past, such as the mention of the long-departed passengers service to Hawke’s Bay, which took in the Manawatu¯ Gorge.
He didn’t just sit back, however. ‘‘I tried to make contact with as many people along the way as I could. I tried to make an effort to talk to them.
‘‘It’s the people that are really interesting. There’s the guy on the train out of Waikanae who’s a sort of philosophical guard, who said: ‘Make the most of it now. You could be dead tomorrow.’’
Quite.
‘‘You do get those people who are absolute train buffs – the man I met on the Northern Explorer. His wife was telling me his aim is to stand on the platform of every station in the North Island.’’
This is book No 5 for Dwyer, a 74-year-old former teacher and subeditor at the Manawatu¯ Standard. His previous titles include Black Jersey, Silver Fern, about the life of Tom Ellison, the first Ma¯ ori to captain the All Blacks, and New Zealand on Foot, about some of the country’s walks. There’s another one on the way later this year, but he can’t yet say what it is about.
Whatever his next adventure, it won’t match that of the Paekakariki station bell.
Two soldiers from Feilding, unhappy to have missed out on refreshments during a stop at the town, stole the bell and hauled it to World War II battlegrounds in the Middle East, where they would ring it to raise morale.
After the war, they returned it to Paekakariki. It’s in a museum now, but it’s one of those stories worth retelling.
New Zealand Adventures by Rail,
by Denis Dwyer, New Holland, $34.99.
‘‘There’s always things happening on a train. You’re in a position where you can sit back and observe it all.’’