Think of the benefits that a southern train service would provide, lessening the single occupant cars and also the buses driving up and down each day to Christchurch. Think of the gains a passenger train service would make in the tourism industry.
The cost to set up the service is used as an excuse but there are many options that don’t seem to be even considered. Does nothing count south of Christchurch?
J. Park
Wakari
A drip-dry investment
Passenger rail in South floated (ODT 18.7.23) hails KiwiRail for leaving room for "a return of passenger services to the deep South so long as councils invest in them." Asking where council payments to KiwiRail go next reveals New Zealand’s greatest rail-fail.
KiwiRail is a state-owned enterprise, meaning they price their services far above cost. When councils "invest", a good chunk becomes KiwiRail profit. Same with the eye-watering ticket prices on KiwiRail’s Coastal Pacific and TranzAlpine trains — rail isn’t that dear to run, but we’ve told KiwiRail to wring it dry. By requiring KiwiRail to profit while they have a virtual monopoly, we get the worst of all worlds.
Reforming KiwiRail is the first step to flourishing passenger rail, about which, like the South Island, the Passenger Rail Inquiry was silent.
Suraya Sidhu Singh
New Plymouth
Enjoying the view
We should remember that KiwiRail used to be the NZ Railways Department, which ran a passenger and freight network which covered almost the entire country for the benefit of all New Zealand.
Since privatisation by the National government in 1993 TranzRail and latterly KiwiRail have in the name of "efficiency" systematically sold off or closed down every branch line, railway station and passing loop they could get away with. Assets once owned by all of us, flicked on for a handful of dollars. For KiwiRail to now suggest that we, in the form of our councils and NZTA, should now pay to replace these assets before we will be magnanimously allowed to have a passenger service, is simply outrageous hypocrisy. And for Dr Connors, having just returned from a business trip to Christchurch by car, I do not care whether the countryside flashes past the carriage in a blur or whether I sit back and enjoy the view, as long as it is in a train. But on the whole I prefer the view to the blur.
Tony Williams
Dunedin
Don’t kill the magic
This week was the beginning of the desecration of the magic of a very special place, Observation Rock. I guess the sound of many helicopter flights indicates the ferrying of materials to start the process. I hope my sick feeling of despair will not continue to be experienced by small communities all over New Zealand who are unable to protect their own special places from "one size fits all" decisions by departmental, regional or big corporate entities.
Beverley Osborn
Stewart Island
Prove the blinkered bean counters wrong
Unless my eyes have deceived me, a photograph which appeared in an ODT last week (11.7.23), showed six to eight participants in the university’s Graduate Science Communication programme, only one of whom was not from overseas. The spread of nationalities across the others would tend to indicate that for this course, there is an international demand. I have seen a number of the films and whether or not it could be debated that a majority of those had communicated much in the way of "science", it seems that a certain level of competence has to be demonstrated, which could be directed towards that end.
An international membership for the course would indicate that Otago has tapped into a situation for which a demand has been demonstrated which is not being satisfied elsewhere. Under those circumstances, the most advantageous move might be to exploit that situation by not canning, but expanding the intake to the course provided sufficient mentors can be found.
There are film schools elsewhere but their emphasis falls mainly on film history and other academic studies. It is common knowledge that large movie organisations prefer to recruit from the ranks, i.e. those with hands-on experience of life on the film set, the editing suite or audio recording studio. Preserve the "hands-on" character which seems to be paramount with our present course, and unless it is an intolerable burden on university finances, publicise and extend it. Bean counters hover, ever poised to deliver the kiss of death to worthwhile endeavours due to their blinkered view of the universe . Prove them wrong.
Ian Smith
Waverley
BIBLE READING: The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. — Romans 8:16.
