Why can't Aotearoa do trains well?
Esplanade scenic railway is the best example we’ve got in this country
irode the local train recently. It was clean, comfortable, had a great view, ran on time and the round trip cost only $3. Of course, it was the iconic Palmerston North Esplanade Scenic Railway, something that has been dear to me since I first rode it more than 40 years ago. I joke that it’s the only train in Aotearoa that runs on time and at a profit. The other dad joke I make on rare occasions when I’m with a visitor and we see a train is: “That’s our only train.” Of course, sarcasm rarely translates across languages so it usually requires a follow-up, “I’m joking, we actually have three trains.”
While lightly brushing the kawakawa leaves with my outstretched arms on the Esplanade loop, I started to reminisce about the great train journeys I have been on, both here and abroad. Sitting in the open carriage doorway as India drifts past me in all its glory, the speed and comfort of the bullet train as we zoom past Mt Fuji, the sweaty metros of London, New York and Paris, the jampacked Mumbai local express and the fastest train in the world blasting towards Shanghai at just under 400km/h.
These were all memorable but the train that is closest to my heart is the Northerner, which used to slide along the rails between Wellington to Auckland seven nights a week.
Mum and us three kids would wait on a dark Palmy railway station platform for the first glimpse of the engine light coming from Longburn, then with a squeal of brakes and rushing of wind it would pull up and on we would hop. We could not afford the sleeper carriage, but the large (for an 8-year-old) seats were fine for a good kip.
After settling in and playing a couple of games of Last Card, it was off to the dining car for an egg sandwich and a can of Fresh Up before our drooping eyes led us back to our seats, the clickity-clack of the carriage wheels like a lullaby helped us to sleep.
Before we knew it, it was 7am and through bleary eyes we saw the mighty Waikato River flowing beside us outside the port windows. Then the urban sprawl of South Auckland, before an 8.30am arrival at the beautiful Auckland railway station and a hug from Granddad as we piled our luggage into the boot of his Mark 3 Cortina for the ride over the harbour bridge.
We used to have great trains in our country, but Rogernomics, cheap Japanese imports, cheap petrol and the freedom of the road led to more and more of us hitting the highway rather than the railway. In 2004 we said goodbye to the Northerner, and the carriages now sit in the shunting yards of Taumarunui, slowly rusting away along with all the dreams of a robust public transport system.
Why can’t we do trains well in the land of the Long White Cloud? We are a large long country, with almost all transport on a north/south axis. We have the tracks already and it seems a no-brainer that a train is more efficient than a bus, a truck and even a Mark 3 Cortina.
The issues are substantial — geography, demographics and economics all make trains problematic. The infrastructure we have, single tracks, old trains and no cohesive last-kilometre public transport all make railway travel a pipedream. I don’t have the answers, but maybe we should keep asking the questions.