The trust wants to help restore services on the line between Dunedin and Middlemarch.
Train services from Dunedin have been much reduced since the Covid-19 pandemic took hold.
Maintenance got behind on the line even when custom was flowing from cruise ships.
Mr Schofield said the trust was keen to be involved in helping to re-establish a full trains service operation.
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Doesn't the council realise how passionate train nuts are? DCC spends money "to attract tourism" on passive stuff, decor, but when it comes to things that a reasonably large minority is very VERY keen on - not so much. Sports Hall of Fame, oh dear the expense!
Taieri Gorge Railway - which fed some innovative businesses - had its run chopped short to fit the fossil fuel guzzling cruise ship timetables. Growing Maniototo businesses that enhanced train then cycle trail experiences, grew Otago's attractions not as single unrelated items but as a golden chain of linked opportunities, attracting more enterprises, more added value for visitors and locals alike.
Train nuts know their trains and care about their history, their engineering, the hurdles overcome building the line. They go places where there is an interesting train - old, newest and fastest, STEAM! - ahead of seaside and shopping for the family holiday. People with a strong interest do that, whether they're into trains or formal gardens or antiquities or theatre. Shopping is incidental, not the main point.
We're crazy if we tolerate councils that can't or won't understand such obvious facts.
I think we will have to wait for a new council who has a real interest in Dunedin for the railway to be saved. The present one is only interested in vanity projects.
Sadly I think the railway is doomed with the current council in place.
It is only a matter of time before another $40 or $50 million to be splurged after the caversham to wingatui bike trail is built , to complete the "logical" central otago to Dunedin bike trail.
No, this council will demand more and more money be splurged on bike ways, after all cars and trains must be gotten rid of to make way for lycra clad people pretending the are exercising while riding electric bikes.