"[We've now] changed to winter packages."
With the second excursion last weekend, Treen said the venture was growing in popularity and not primarily with skiers.
"I think what it is bringing is people that can take it or leave it. They want to come down and see the snow, but there's been a mixed response in the type of passengers I'm seeing. It's bringing different people to do different things."
During the planning stage all the tourism operators in the district were invited to meetings in Ohakune, National Park and Taumarunui to discuss what they had on offer.
"There were all kinds of ideas about what they thought would be a good idea for their respective towns. Then we worked with one another and put the packages together," Treen said.
"I think without the i-Site in the middle to facilitate and co-ordinate with everyone, it would be hard to do, because we have got that business relationship with the operators and the district and knowledge of how they all work.
"It was a soft launch and it's been difficult with Covid not knowing if you could travel. The advertising around that has been difficult, but now the advertising is growing."
The carriages and locomotive are owned by Glenbrook Vintage Railway (GVR).
"What we are doing really is in response to Weston Kirton doing a lot of work trying to get passenger trains down to promote tourism in the King Country and Ruapehu region. So that's sort of where the idea was born in response to that," GVR general manager Tim Kerwin said.
"We can run trains all over the country so the idea came up on a specifically domestic tourism train in that area, I guess trying to get people out of the larger centres Auckland/Hamilton, and get them down to the region. That was the idea behind it.
"We've done an amazing amount of work behind the scenes to get this off the ground and working really closely with Visit Ruapehu as well as the i-Site down there. The i-Sites are the real engine room, they are just amazing. So that's the idea of bringing the monthly train service down, three days two nights. Depart Auckland Friday morning, get down there in the afternoon and come back Sunday. That's the idea."
GVR can carry up to 300 passengers, he said.
"This is something we are just wanting to continually build the numbers on, and they are – which is really good. We are hoping to get more," Kerwin said.
"The biggest thing for us is just getting the exposure. This isn't funded by anybody. We are all doing it at our own risk. Visit Ruapehu have provided some funding for advertising which is fantastic, but the service isn't subsidised by central or local governments.
"The main thing for us is getting people down there and exploring that area. Speaking personally, I sort of travelled through that area a lot – used to be a train driver with KiwiRail – and I just didn't realise how much was down there.
"There is so much to do down there aside from what we know. I would love to take my family down there at some stage. It's really awesome and really cool."
Ruapehu representative on Horizons Regional Council, Weston Kirton is a fierce protagonist of passenger train use who views the successful establishment of the GVR excursions as a bit of an add-on.
"My focus has always been to get a commuter service up and running similar to what we had in the past, where people were shifting from one region to another, not necessarily tourists," he said.
"Having the Northerner stop in Taumarunui was important for that reason."
KiwiRail's decision in 2012 the Northerner would no longer stop at 12 stations including Taihape, Taumarunui and Te Kūiti, was gutting, Kirton said.
"We were overlooked as a community in favouring tourism, which was the thing they wanted to focus on and still do," he said.
"So I'm really irate about KiwiRail focusing just on tourism and giving us the bum's rush in terms of stopping in smaller communities. I've been fighting hard alongside some of the colleagues on regional and local councils to get something that is acceptable by the local community."
GVR does bring a lot of people into the community, he said. But they are more visitors and train enthusiasts, rather than a daily or every second day service taking people from one community to another.
"For someone going to Hamilton or Auckland there's not an option for us to go by train these days, unless you go to National Park, for Taumarunui – or from Waitomo to Ōtorohanga to the north. That's the best we can do here.
"KiwiRail don't seem to be interested in any commuter service at all, and don't seem to be and are not under any obligation from the Government which I think is pretty poor from a government perspective, to just allow KiwiRail to make the call in terms of public transport. So I'm really focusing on dealing with the Government rather than KiwiRail."
