Raurimu Spiral tours a hit with enthusiasts
Recently retired man’s venture sparked by train
Peter Davison was enjoying a quiet smoke at the Taumarunui Railway Station one day when a train came through and got him thinking.
He was thinking about how, when he was younger, his cricket team used to enjoy the train trip from Thames Valley to Marton to play cricket, and back. That trip took in the famous Raurimu Spiral, a feat of engineering which is still recognised today and is a popular feature on railway trips.
Peter thought it was quite possible that other people might also enjoy a train trip that took in the spiral, without having to pay for a long, costly trip that would make it too hard to get back to their starting point. Although he has no railway experience, he decided he was going to be the man to do it.
So Peter’s set up Spiral Tours, a not-for-proft he’s running off his own bat. He has teamed up with Glenbook Vintage Railway’s excursion trips to run railway trips from Taumarunui to National Park and back again, with all the profits going to local charities. Peter’s still at the organising stage and
so hasn’t yet selected which charities will benefit but he’s thinking of spreading the money across the towns the trail sightseers are drawn from.
Glenbrook Vintage Railway is running excursion trains with a 1965 diesel locomotive pulling carriages from the late 1930s from Pukekohe to Ohakune on weekends in July, August and September and Peter has arranged with them to pick up passengers just for the Spiral Tours part of the journey. People arrive at Taumarunui Railway Station by 10.45am, are bussed from Taumarunui to National Park and have time for a toilet stop and a look around the historic National Park Station and cafe before boarding the Glenbrook
Vintage Railway excursion train and travelling down the Raurimu Spiral en route back to Taumarunui, arriving at 1.10pm. The dates are July 11, August 15 and September 12 and the cost is $95 per person.
Peter is a recently-retired businessman who used to have a pest control business in Auckland and says organising train tours down the Raurimu Spiral just struck him as something he could do. He has already run one spiral tour using the Northern Explorer, for 20 people on June 2 which everybody loved but says the logistics using the Northern Explorer were just too difficult. Glenbrook however are happy to have Peter’s guests on their trips and will even add extra carriages if needed.
Peter’s had plenty of interest from rail enthusiasts and people who are interested in the spiral, to those who just want to ride it for the scenery. He’s paid to have a website built (spiraltours.co.nz) and says organising the trips makes people happy.
“It gives me something to bloody well do — it keeps me off the street,” he jokes.
On a more serious note he says it was wonderful seeing how much people enjoyed the trip he organised last month.
“It gave me a real buzz.”