Down the line, towns mourn train's end

Overlander travellers enjoy majestic views of the Rangitikei River. Picture / Greg Bowker

The Overlander is on time, pulling out of downtown Britomart at 0730.

Our carriage has 49 seats, 44 of which are empty. The space is both the Overlander's charm and its death knell. Flights to Wellington this morning are probably full.

Almost everything about the Overlander is tired, from the toilet that doesn't flush to the plastic cup lids that cut your lip every time you take a sip of tea. The cheese and tomato sandwich from the train canteen is, well, possibly the worst I've ever eaten and it's obvious that barely a cent has been invested in this service in years.

The train's ancient intercom crackles into life, as it will for much of the 12-hour journey: We will travel over 681km of track and 352 bridges and pass through 14 tunnels.

It's not a flying start. At Westfield, another announcement informs us the latest delay is because we are "waiting for a driver". We had thought there was one already on board.

Train manager today is 59-year-old Frank Petersen. In the job nine years, he hasn't decided whether to take redundancy after the Overlander's last ride on September 30.

Penny-pinching by successive owners means it's not fun any more, he says. Like all Toll NZ employees spoken to by the Herald, he's sad it's the end of the line.

In the middle carriage nearest the food bar, three young camera operators from Auckland are making the trip before it's too late.

"Let's face it, the only reason we're on it is because it's closing down," says TV3 staffer Scott Davies.

More than anything, this journey is about small-town New Zealand, where an elderly "station master" in fluorescent vest still waves the train off every day at Taumarunui because he always has; where the two teenage boys who hop aboard there are going to Paraparaumu to buy a cheap car.

The station official in fluorescent vest patrolling the platform at National Park is a fox terrier called Max. Of the 45 minutes we are stopped here, 20 are spent in the lunch queue, which stretches out onto the platform.

Station Cafe owner Warren Furner convinced Toll to make the extended stop three years ago and the food is certainly worth the wait. He has put his heart into this business, lovingly restoring the station interior "for the price of a modest house". A few years ago, the town fended off a threat to demolish the 1908 building and replace it with an aluminium shelter.

The train's demise is about the death of small-town New Zealand, he says. The Overlander is the "bread and butter" of the business; he'll have to reduce staff and hours to survive.

In the distance, Mt Ruapehu is on its best behaviour, emerging from the clouds just in time for English tourist Keith Batchelor to take a photo.

The scenery is great, the $99 special fare "very competitive" and with four weeks' holiday, he and partner Jenny Searle are happy gazing at mountains, rivers and green paddocks through not-very-clean windows.

Of the tourists on board - and there don't appear to be many - most seem happy, despite the food queue and bizarre intercom announcements.

At one point the announcer encourages us to spot the kuni kuni pigs in a nearby paddock. These will be of interest to "foreigners, anyone who is Chinese and to children", we are told.

At Ohakune, Ruapehu District Council is spending $100,000 on the town's century-old railway station which was damaged by arsonists. The facelift will be finished just in time for the Overlander's last ride.

From Palmerston North we pick up speed. The carriage is now almost full but making the entire trip in a chock-full train doesn't bear thinking about.

In towns like Te Kuiti and Ohakune, Feilding and Levin, the Overlander will be genuinely missed. While the scrapping of the train has provoked a wave of nostalgia, once it's gone, city-dwellers, at least, are likely to forget it ever existed.


Track back

* NZ rail privatised 1993. Sold to consortium Tranz Rail. Bought by Toll Holdings from Tranz Rail 2004.

* Government re-purchased infrastructure, including rails, from Toll and agreed to invest $200 million.

* Toll NZ was to invest $100 million in rolling stock.


On the line

* The "last spike" driven into the main trunk line in 1908.

* The line, particularly the Raurimu spiral, has been recognised as one of the great engineering feats.

* Passenger numbers have dropped from 90,000 to 50,000 in the last two years, the company says.

* The Overlander is the last North Island passenger train apart from the one that runs between Palmerston North and Wellington.