RM30 Silver Fern ‘Great Forgotten Taranaki Rail Tour’ 2015 4:59
One of New Zealand’s Silver Fern railcars, picks up a tour group in Hawera and takes them down the Marton – New Plymouth Line for a coach transfer at Waverley in New Zealand’s Taranaki Region.
The tour was marketed as the ‘Great Forgotten Taranaki Rail Tour’ and was organised by Pukekohe Travels. The tour group left Auckland on February 26 aboard the Northern Explorer express and travelled as far as Taumaranui. The group was bussed over the ‘Forgotten World Highway’ to New Plymouth. (Ashamedly, the parallel mainline railway over this route is not currently used by trains)
After three nights in New Plymouth the tour group rode aboard the charted Silver Fern railcar RM 30 to Hawera. This video begins with the group re-boarding their railcar after a lunch time visit to Tawhiti museum on the 1st of March.
Heading through rural pastureland and through Patea, the railcar carries the group to Waverley station where they transfer to coach for the last stretch to Whanganui. The video continues to follow the empty ‘fern’ to Wanganui. At Kai Iwi the railcar pulls into the loop (to await a hi rail vehicle on ‘heat patrol’ and milk train 544 – not included in this video).
The railcar cruises across the Whanganui River to East Town before changing direction and trundling down the Whanganui Branch past St Josephs Chapel at Cullinane College.
Later that night, the railcar was passed into the care of SteamRail Wanganui Inc who looked after it until it’s passengers reboarded the following morning.
The reason the railcar could not carry it’s tour group into Whanganui was because of a local street closure for a street-drag car event that would have prevented the coaches accessing the Whanganui freight yard. Waverley Station was chosen as a safe place for the passengers to disembark because of the platform of the defunct station museum.
Passenger services ceased on the MNPL in 1977. Today our national railway operator focuses on freight traffic along this line. The lines surviving passenger platforms such as the one at Hawera are unmaintained and can be treacherous for elderly passengers on trips such as this.
Its probably not recognised by our regional councils, but a railway station is still a ‘gateway’ representing it’s particular town along the line for tourists who arrive on rail tours.
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