This month the Dunedin city councillors will be presented options for the future of Dunedin Railways.
They will be discussed and then put out for public consultation, leading to the big decision the councillors will have to make on the way forward for Dunedin Railways.
In a recent radio interview Cr Lee Vandervis said he was disappointed in the response the city got on public submissions, and also attendance at meetings, which he believed would be better held in the evening so those that work during the day could attend.
The Dunedin Railways options are to close it or retain it (under a number of different models and costs). I believe the vast majority of Dunedin ratepayers would rather retain the railway than see it ripped up and when the submissions are called for, here is your opportunity to have your say.
A number of groups have put forward options for the railway already that will be considered and we all have an opinion on the best way forward. Now it is time to have your say if you agree with them or not.
The best option, in my opinion, is retention of the line to Middlemarch that brings economic benefit to the Strath Taieri and connections to the Otago Central Rail Trail and Queenstown. Rail needs to be seen as an extension of the rail trail. It brings a point of difference to the many other bike trails in Otago and is a relaxing way to and from Middlemarch to start or end their journey.
Middlemarch has not seen much benefit off the rail trail as the mothballing of the railway has resulted in users of the rail trail starting and ending their trips at Clyde because they fly in and out of Queenstown. This means bikers spend very little time in Middlemarch.
In the past the railway predominantly focused on Pukerangi as a destination, mainly catering for the cruise ship passengers. Middlemarch needs to be the destination, as there are things to do there.
Yes, at present, due to both a lack of trains and cyclists returning, Clyde does not overly cater for the tourist market — but you bring a train daily to the town and this allows investment in accommodation, tours etc that will benefit the whole Strath Taieri.
Queenstown is a huge tourist market and tapping into that will benefit the railway and Dunedin as even tapping into a small proportion of the Queenstown market would bring economic benefit to Dunedin.
All this needs to be taken into account as there is so much more the railway can do for tourism other than make money for itself.
A bad decision was made putting Dunedin Railways into mothballs when so many other attractions bit the bullet over Covid and are now back to normal operations.
But councillors didn’t have the right information or time to think about it, in my opinion, to make any other decision than mothballing and I applaud them in this, as the other option was closure.
Dunedin Railways needs to come back but under a different model from what it was pre-Covid, and there needs to be changes in the way it is run: it needs railway knowledge, it needs railway marketing, it needs that knowledge retained to be adaptable in the future, it needs a maintenance facility, it needs some entity to think out of the box and offer alternative options such as more special events and somebody that is in it for the long term.
Most of all is the historic nature of the railway, its beauty and of any city in New Zealand we are the one with it at our doorstep.
Whatever option is your preference — retention of the railway, making it a cycleway or giving up and closing it altogether — you need to have your say and let the councillors know how Dunedin feels about its railway.
- Grant Craig is president of the Federation of Rail Organisations and deputy chairman of the Otago Excursion Train Trust.
