Must be a way this special train trip can remain
WHAT has changed since the early 1990s when my fading memory seems to recall the Otago Excursion Train Trust running regular train trips to Middlemarch, way before we saw cruise ships and big numbers of international tourists including Dunedin as part of their holiday trip?
I would be interested to know why it was economically viable in the 1990s when most of the customers were presumably Kiwis, but is not now when the market is again limited to locals.
I am sure it was prudent for the directors to temporarily halt operations during Covid19 lockdown and its aftermath.
But, now we have seen a massive upsurge in domestic tourism, surely it is time to reevaluate.
What about asking the Dunedin
City Council to underwrite a sixmonth trial of two trips a week? A full day trip to Middlemarch every Wednesday and Sunday, with ‘‘billy tea’’ lunch and local history tour, and whatever enterprising locals can devise, might have a good chance of becoming a ‘‘must do’’ for any domestic visitor.
Or are the contingent liabilities around deferred maintenance so great that no option for the Middlemarch line is viable?
Colin Brown
Mosgiel
I READ with disappointment the article about selling off the Dunedin Railways assets (ODT, 31.7.20).
I question why the DCC isn’t taking advantage of the Visit New Zealand campaign that is proving so successful for tourist destinations elsewhere in the country.
Rather than promoting the city and the railway as a tourist destination to other New Zealanders, it simply closed its doors on March 23, before the lockdown, to put it into “hibernation”, and 50 people lost their jobs.
Is it too difficult to understand that we have an amazing facility in this railway?
The easy way out was to close it down, just like we have done with so many of our other transport icons of the past which would be amazing assets as we market Dunedin as a heritage city.
I remember vividly the original campaign to save this railway, and was it all for nought?
Come on, council, put your big pants on, take a lesson from other tourist operators who are turning this situation around, and get this railway rolling again.
Oh, and since when is ‘‘hibernation’’ the same as ‘‘selling the assets’’?
Pam Jemmett
Dunedin