The Future Is Rail

How easy is it to plan a long weekend away in Aotearoa New Zealand if you are not going to drive or fly? InterCity buses offer options. But what about a train trip, even taking your bike too? Maybe heading out from Auckland to Hamilton to explore the city’s world-famous gardens, visiting the museum and walking the river trails. Or, in summer, traveling from Auckland or Hamilton to Mt Maunganui for a beach weekend? Friday evening until Monday afternoon in the mountain town of Ohakune? For Cantabrians, a couple of days in Dunedin? Visiting wineries in Hawkes Bay? Unlike the rest of the world, a weekend adventure, even over a normal two-day weekend, by train in Aotearoa New Zealand is impossible. Few long-distance passenger rail services exist; those that do make it extremely difficult to plan a weekend away. The Capital Connection, linking the Manawatu and Horowhenua to Wellington, never runs on weekends or on public holidays. It is designed as a once daily commuter train, sitting idle on rail sidings between these trips. It is also not used for events, such as taking people from out of the Wellington region to and from a sellout rugby game or a concert. Good news: Te Huia normally runs on a Saturday. But if you go from Auckland to Hamilton for a weekend, don’t expect to come back on it as there is no Sunday service. But on long weekends it doesn’t run at all! Just before Labour weekend 2024, Te Huia’s Facebook page announced the train would not be running over the long weekend. This prompted a series of comments from the public suggesting the trains should run on such weekends. Te Huia operators’ mind boggling response: the train is a ‘public service’ and most public services do not run on long weekends. Tell that to hospital staff, those who police our roads, the crew of inter-island ferries or airlines. But what about the ‘commercial’ KiwiRail operated Northern Explorer? Sorry, but again you are out of luck planning a long weekend away. Over Labour weekend there were no services from Wellington to Auckland and just one train from Auckland to Wellington, traveling on Monday. At the best of times, it is not possible to plan a weekend trip from Wellington to Ohakune, unless you want to make it a four-day weekend. Making it even worse, over the long weekend most train services were not running in either Auckland or Wellington due to railway maintenance and upgrading. We should not cater only to those who can drive. Even for individuals who choose to fly, some places are difficult to reach by plane and some services don’t even exist, such as a link between Wellington and Ohakune. And then there are people who take climate change seriously and want to use extremely low emission train travel.

Rail enabled ferries are not dated technology, yet some try to deceive the NZ public into believing that they are obsolete and hardly used around the world anymore. However, this simply isn’t true as numerous examples of rail enabled ferries on a wide variety of routes/services globally. Here’s a list of most of the services: Yellow Sea: Dalian, Liaoning – Yantai, Shandong, China Qiongzhou Strait: Leizhou Peninsula, Guangdong – Haikou, Hainan, China Caspian Sea: Baku/Alat, Azerbaijan – Türkmenbaşy, Turkmenistan Baku/Alat, Azerbaijan – Aktau, Kazakhstan Black Sea: Chornomorsk, Ukraine - Batumi, Georgia Chornomorsk, Ukraine - Varna, Bulgaria Chornomorsk, Ukraine - Derince, Turkey (Odesa and Crimean (Kerch & Krym) services affected or suspend by war) Burgas, Bulgaria - Batumi, Georgia Varna, Bulgaria - Batumi, Georgia Varna, Bulgaria - Poti, Georgia Varna, Bulgaria – Kavkaz, Russia Samsun, Turkey - Kavkaz, Russia Sea of Okhotsk: Vanino – Kholmsk, Russia Russian Mainland – Oblast/Baltic Sea and Gulf of Finland: Baltiysk/Oblast - Ust-Luga, Russia Sea of Marmara: Tekirdağ-Bandırma, Turkey Lake Van: Van, Turkey – Tatvan, Iran Baltic Sea: Rostock, Germany - Trelleborg, Sweden Plans to restart rail operations between Świnoujście, Poland – Trelleborg & Ystad, Sweden Strait of Messina/Mediterranean Sea, & Tyrrhenian Sea: Villa San Giovanni - Messina/Sicily, Italy Rail ferries to Golfo Aranci/Sardinia, Italy, from the mainland/ Villa San Giovanni and Messina/Sicily are currently determined by demand. Lake Victoria: Port Bell, Uganda - Kisumu, Kenya Port Bell, Uganda – Mwanza, Tanzania Jinga, Uganda - Kisumu, Kenya Jinga, Uganda – Mwanza, Tanzania Additional rail port in Musoma, Tanzania, but not connected to any rail network. Saint Lawrence River: Matane - Baie-Comeau, Quebec, Canada Hudson-Raritan Estuary: Jersey City, New Jersey – Brooklyn, New York, U.S.A Gulf of Mexico: Mobile, Alabama, U.S.A. - Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico Puget Sound, Salish Sea, Inside Passage, Gulf of Alaska, & Prince William Sound: Seattle, Washington - Whittier, Alaska, U.S.A Strait of Georgia: Delta – Nanimo, British Columbia, Canada Several companies/ports have rail sidings that are connected via rail ferry (sometimes only means of transport), incl. Powell River, Port Mellon, Harmac, & Crofton Lake Titicaca: Puno, Peru – Guaqui, Bolivia Cook Strait: Wellington – Picton, New Zealand These #rail #ferry services efficiently #transport #freight and sometimes passengers. Required various purposes, incl. bypass breaks of gauge, avoid unfriendly territory, save costs, or simply get between two land masses/islands separated by water. The amount of rail enabled ferries has greatly decreased, however the vast majority of the time this is because of new rail bridges, tunnels, and/or new or improved land connections/routes. Rarely has a rail network been disconnected by a ferry service discontinuing rail operations without there being a new/another rail route. #nz