Conversation Comment: Bring back trains

Dunedin Railway Station, pictured during a 'Get the Train' day in 2010. Huge popularity; no support from Government. Photo / Derek Onley

I stopped flying in 2019. I’m still not down to Shanks’ pony except on our 10-acre ex-sheep paddock, home to apples, plums, hazelnuts, walnuts, chestnuts, berries, vegetables, native trees, Derek and me. Our home-converted electric Honda City gives us another 100 kilometres.

To go any further - I love trains. But I can’t travel from my Dunedin home by train. That option’s been taken from us via underfunding by successive governments, including privatisation and asset stripping. State-owned NZ Rail was sold off in 1993 to a private consortium including Fay Richwhite, and to Toll Holdings in 2004. The Labour Government repurchased the network and formed KiwiRail in 2018. But as a state-owned enterprise, KiwiRail is still expected to make a profit for the Government. The money is in carting coal, not passengers. Freight and profit are still the focuses. Environmental and social considerations come last.

Dunedin Railway Station, the most photographed building in the country and possibly the second-most photographed building in the Southern Hemisphere after the Sydney Opera House, is now only used by the freight train drivers who cart coal for KiwiRail’s biggest customer, Fonterra, and occasionally by the local Dunedin City Council-owned tourist operation Dunedin Railways.

I want my railway station back. Wouldn’t it be great to again be able to travel this country by train? Affordable passenger rail would create jobs and enliven our provincial towns. If you can’t afford a car, let alone the petrol to run it, rail would link you up to relatives and friends around the country. Restoring passenger rail is a way to reduce emissions and tackle the climate and cost of living crises at the same time.

It’s popular. It’s doable.

Did you hear about those “idiots” who glued themselves to the roads around Wellington last October? Their demand: restore passenger rail. I was there. I supported them. I applaud them. On one occasion 11 people, including a father and son, husband and wife, secondary school teacher and six grandparents representing more than 30 grandchildren between them, stopped traffic on Transmission Gully. They believe the latest scary climate science predictions, and understand how little time we have to bring emissions down and future-proof our lives. Doing nothing to avert the worst of the climate chaos is out of the question. They realise no-one else is going to save us; Governments’ inaction at COP27 last year put paid to that. They, like so many around the world, have come to the conclusion that peaceful disruption is an appropriate and necessary response to the climate crisis.

Here’s the bit that might, as it does me, give you a glimmer of hope for the future. Restore Passenger Rail has teamed up with climate campaigners from eleven other countries, together called the A22 Network. Their demands range from restoring wetlands to insulating homes. Their disruptive tactics are similar - sitting on motorways - and are designed to pressure their respective governments to actually reduce emissions.

In Wellington last October, Restore Passenger Rail supporters attracted around 47 news articles including newspaper, tv and radio appearances, not counting social media. They got more public and Government attention than those of us who have protested, marched, signed petitions, and even occupied coal mines off and on for more than 10 years. They got a meeting with Transport Minister Michael Wood.

Yeah, I know the media loves a good conflict, but the point is, climate discussion got into the headlines big-time in October. An RNZ Panel poll got the biggest response ever, and had 85.4 per cent of responders supporting the protestors.

Minister Wood hasn’t agreed to restore passenger rail. Yet.

Rosemary Penwarden was born and bred on a dairy farm near Whanganui and is one of the spokespeople for the Restore Passenger Rail campaign.