Overview

Urban passenger rail patronage in Auckland and Wellington is now booming after many years of decline. Outside these two centres, however, the situation is quite different: intercity and regional passenger rail services are scarce, and no other city possesses suburban rail. Not only does this hamper the mobility of regional New Zealanders, it is incongruous in light of the climate emergency declared by many local councils. Can't Get There from Here traces the expansion and - more commonly - the contraction of New Zealand's passenger rail network over the last century. What is the historical context of today's imbalance between rail and road? How far and wide did the passenger rail network once run? Why is there an abject lack of services beyond the North Island's two main cities, even as demand for passenger transport continues to grow? This book seeks to answer these questions. In this fascinating study, Andre Brett argues that the trend away from passenger rail might appear inevitable and irreversible but it was not. Things could have been - and still could be - very different. We need to understand the challenges that brought passenger rail to the brink of extinction in order to create policy for future transport that is efficient and sustainable.

Full Product Details

Author:   Andre Brett ,  Sam van der Weerden
Publisher:   Otago University Press
Imprint:   Otago University Press
ISBN:  

9781990048098

ISBN 10:   1990048099
Pages:   384
Publication Date:   01 November 2021
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock  
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Table of Contents

"List of Maps Abbreviations and usage 7 Legend to maps 8 Foreword by Anthonie Tonnon INTRODUCTION 9 What trains are we talking about? 13 Limited expresses, mixed trains and other members of the railway vocabulary 16 Power, control and branding 18 CHAPTER 1. The network in 1920 22 An emerging competitor 34 CHAPTER 2. 1920-1928: The regional railway falters 38 1920-28: Grand visions realised incompletely 47 1920-28: The end of the rural branch line 56 1921: The first cuts 59 1926-28: The buses are coming 62 CHAPTER 3. 1929-1934: A royal commission and its aftermath 66 1929-30: Reconsidering rail's role 74 1930: Tinkering at the edges 77 1930-31: Outcomes of the royal commission 81 1932: Whanganui loses suburban rail 88 1931-33: Legislative protection, rural contraction 89 1933: Something to celebrate 93 CHAPTER 4. 1935-45: A network unified in the face of adversity 96 1935-37: A modern railway for the capital 106 1936-39: Wairoa gets its railway 111 1936-40: Linking Canterbury and Marlborough 113 1936-40: Regulation and contraction 115 1940-45: Closing the gaps 119 CHAPTER 5 1945-54: The drift to road 124 NZR and the post-war transition 133 1945-50: Post-war contraction 134 1951-54: The waterfront dispute and its consequences 142 1951-54: More lost opportunities 147 1946-54: A different purpose for rail 150 CHAPTER 6 1955-68: The Fiat fiasco 158 1955-58: Railcars and the Remutakas 7 1958-59: Finalising the railcar network 173 1956-66: 'An important principle of policy' in Invercargill 176 1955-60: Rural attrition 178 1967-68: Flawed Fiats and trimmed timetables 184 CHAPTER 7. 1970-89: 'The emotive term ""railcars""': Cancellations in town and country 190 1970-76: Farewell to rural and miners' trains 199 1971-78: Railcar routes rot 204 1972-82: Suburban subtractions 213 1983-88: The final echoes of the developmental railway 225 1989: The platforms are quiet 230 CHAPTER 8. 1990-2020: The false dawn 232 1991: Revival? 241 1993-2000: Privatisation and the passenger train 242 2001-02: The regional passenger train's annus horribilis 245 The difficult 2000s 251 2003-20: Changing fortunes in Auckland 254 CHAPTER 9. Whither passenger rail in New Zealand? 262 How did we get here? 265 The network in 2020 266 What might the future hold? 268 The myths we must not tell ourselves 270 What will we need to revitalise passenger rail? 272 Upper North Island 275 Lower North Island 276 North Island Main Trunk 278 South Island 280 Hamilton 283 Tauranga 285 Napier-Hastings 286 Christchurch 288 Dunedin 289 Where else? 290 All aboard! 291"

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Author Information

Andre Brett is a postdoctoral researcher in history at the University of Wollongong. He has written numerous articles on Australian and New Zealand history for scholarly and popular publications in both countries, and in 2016 wrote Acknowledge No Frontier: The Creation and Demise of New Zealand's Provinces, 1853-76. Sam van der Weerden is a Dunedin mathematician and mapmaker who has carried out map work for Otago Regional Council's bus services, and Sarah Gallagher's book Scarfie Flats (2019) and promotional posters for Anthonie Tonnon's Rail Land tour (https://www.anthonietonnon.com/railland).

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