The Waihemo Community Board believes the expansion of the train service will assist the growth of tourism in the area.
Taieri Gorge Railway chief executive officer Murray Bond said yesterday it was ‘‘definite'' the Seasider service would run between Dunedin and Palmerston every Wednesday and Saturday between October this year and April 2009.
Passenger numbers had been good on the weekly Seasider in the last two months, he said. It would take a while for numbers on the second weekly train to build up, but the railway was prepared for that, Mr Bond said.
The railway journey between Dunedin and Palmerston is now being marketed internationally as the ‘‘Pacific Coast railway''.
Tour bus companies would be encouraged to transfer passengers to the Seasider at Palmerston for the trip to Dunedin, as well as from Dunedin to Palmerston, Mr Bond said.
The doubling of the number of passenger trains on the Dunedin to Palmerston line would make links with tour bus companies easier.
Tourism in the Waihemo district is the subject of a report by Waitaki Development Board chief executive Mark Juricich, to the meeting of the Waihemo Community Board on Monday.
In his report, Mr Juricich says the district has only one ‘‘export ready'' tourism product, the Oceana Gold tours at the Macraes gold mine.
Tourism Waitaki promotes these tours and includes them in a ‘‘gold pass'' package, which also covers visits to the Oamaru Blue penguin colony, Totara Estate and the Whitestone cheese factory, in Oamaru.
