Main Trunk towns ‘must push for rail’
The Te Huia rail service, which is set to begin running passenger trains between the Waikato and Auckland next month, is great news for Taumarunui, Weston Kirton says.
A former Taumarunui mayor and its current representative on the Horizons Regional Council, Kirton has lobbied for years to expand similar passenger travel services right up and down the Main Trunk Line.
“The Te Huia service is a big step in the right direction, but it needs to be followed up,” Kirton said.
“In the interests of revitalising the fortunes of rural towns and of reducing carbon emissions, we [local and regional councils] should all be pushing like mighty D8 locomotives to see this service expanded.”
Due to start on April 6, the Te Huia service will initially run on week days, offering two return trips a day between Frankton to Papakura.
Kiwirail said Te Huia would be capable of carrying more than 500 passengers, expanding the options for Waikato commuters travelling between Hamilton, Huntly and Auckland, who will receive internet coverage while travelling.
But Kirton envisages similar links right up and down the North Island.
“The existing Northern Explorer is a limited scenic train service for tourists travelling between Auckland and Wellington (three times a week in either direction), and that’s fine, of course. But local and regional councils all along the Main Trunk are discussing additional opportunities with Kiwirail,” he says.
“We envisage passenger services between Auckland and Hamilton; Hamilton and Palmerston North; Palmerston North and Wellington. And we’d like to see passengers able to get on or off trains at all the smaller stops.”
Kiwirail has set up a fund to study increasing passenger services. Each council has put in $2000 and Kiwirail has matched contributions, bringing the fund total to $40,000.
Kirton’s last big push to expand passenger services was in 2019, when he petitioned Parliament to reinstate a stop-off at Taumarunui by the Northern Explorer tourist train. The petition was signed by more than 3500 people, and supported by local MP Ian Mckelvie, Age Concern and other groups. It got a good hearing at Select Committee level, by pointing out that towns all along the Main Trunk suffered financially following a decision in 2012 to limit stops to “tourist hot spots”.
The petition was soon followed up by the Wellington Regional Council and other Main Trunk towns calling for the same thing.
He is adamant that the existing Northern Explorer scenic train should provide at least a two-minute stop at Taumarunui.
“At present it’s nearest stop to our town, once made famous by Peter Cape’s 1950s folk song Taumarunui on the Main Trunk Line, is one at National Park.”
Kirton believes railway excursions are another huge asset for promoting marginalised rural towns like his own.
He works with the Glenbrook Vintage Railway Group, which runs excursions to the Waikato and Central North Island comprising up to 300 passengers at a time. This group also actively co-operates Taumarunui’s Track Rail Action Centre (TRAC), of which Kirton is chairman.
“My family, like many at Taumarunui, lived and breathed trains — with my grandfather the station master here from 1919 to 1923. Older residents recall this town’s wonderful day and night rail passenger links to Hamilton and New Plymouth, which are both long gone.
“More than a hundred years ago the Government forcibly took land from Taumarunui Ma¯ori to build the Main Trunk. But politicians of the day promised passenger and freight services created would more than compensate them for their losses. In my view the responsibility to deliver on those promises remains to this very day.
“Rail was once right at the core of our town’s identity. It could still bring us marvellous opportunities to enhance low emission transportation and expanded tourism.”
"The Te Huia service is a big step in the right direction, but it needs to be followed up."
Weston Kirton