"It is not that far to Auckland, so two hours and 20 minutes is a long time, so what is stopping it?" Cr Henry said.
"Is it infrastructure or the rail carriages or the locomotive is that the problem."
Cr Macpherson said a number of problems will slow travel down, such as passing lanes for other trains, and Papakura to Britomart includes several stops along the way.
Councillor James Casson asked if it was a good deal for the ratepayers.
"You have got about 155 seats for the trains and a 55 per cent estimate for loading. You are looking at around about 80 people per trip and 160 per day out of a population of about 165,000 people in Hamilton," Cr Casson said.
"That's about 50,000 ratepayers in Hamilton are subsiding 80-odd people a day."
"I think this is a very poor deal for our ratepayer."
Cr Macpherson responded that recent surveys had seen a rise in people who would use the passenger service.
"There will always be a subsidy expected partly from government and partly from rates. Now whether people think that is a good idea or not then they should certainly submit," Cr Macpherson said.
He said that the operational costs for the rail service would be roughly $8 million a year.
Councillor Garry Mallett said that this experiment had been tried before and he believed it would not work out economically.
"I think this thing economically does not stack up. The level of non user-pays will be unsustainable and if you try and make it user-pay the cost will be so much that the users won't use it," Cr Mallett said.
"I can't see a huge benefit."
"You say two hours and 20 minutes and then you still have to get to where you need to go, while in a car you can get relatively close to where you need to."
Councillor Macpherson shot down Cr Mallet's claim that it would be easier in a car.
"That's assuming you can find a park where you need to go, which is about $24 a day according to the latest assessments."
Councillor Mark Bunting asked if a service would be going from Auckland to Hamilton in the mornings.
Cr Macpherson responded that currently they do not believe there is a large enough demand from passengers going from Auckland to Hamilton for work compared to those heading from Hamilton to Auckland.
Councillor Leo Tooman asked how this service would affect the bus service that runs daily to Auckland.
"Currently we have 13 buses that depart from Hamilton every day.
"The first one leaves at 7am, takes one hour and 55 minutes to get there and only costs $17," Cr Tooman said.
Cr Macpherson said that the passenger demand survey showed only about 20 per cent of people wanted to use a bus service over rail.
Hamilton City Council bought a park and ride site last year at Rotokauri and want 75 per cent of funding for the proposed service to come from central government.
The council has another meeting with central government on Monday on growth, but both the regional council and city council are stressing that they need to know if central government will pay up by the end of May.
What's being proposed
Councillor Dave Macpherson gave this proposal to the growth and infrastructure committee on how the rail service could run.
A twice-a-day commuter passenger service from Frankton station will leave at 6am and 6.40am for Papakura station. Passengers will switch to Auckland's electric metro train service to travel to Britomart. A ticket price of about $25 one way is being suggested for Hamilton to Britomart.
From a planned new Te Rapa park and ride station it will take about two hours and15 minutes, which includes switching trains.
The train from Te Rapa will stop in Huntly and Tuakau on the way to Papakura.
The Waikato Regional Council ran a passenger demand survey which suggested that at a conservative estimate about 250 passengers per day would use the service.
