Ormondville Rail Preservation Group Inc.
Articles from the (Dannevirke) Evening News
(reprinted here with permission)
Dannevirke rail link earmarked for closure (27/6/2001)
Deadline for Bay Express bookings (18/7/2001)
Efforts to save Bay Express fail (18/8/2001)
Dannevirke rail link earmarked for closure
Evening News (Dannevirke) 27 June 2001, p. 1
By Brian Selford and NZPA
Former Dannevirke Railway stationmaster Peter Mulvey says the proposed closure of the Bay Express service is a sad blow to another of the town's dwindling passenger services.
"I was made redundant from the railway station in 1990 but the Wellington to Napier express service had been pretty well under used for the three years before that.
"It was kept pretty busy during holiday periods and occasionally then you could struggle to get a seat but at other times it was not well used," he said
Mr Mulvey felt it was in the early 1980s that rail service started to diminish as more people seemed to own cars.
"Once the railcars started to be taken out of circulation that was it. I suppose the hours of the Bay Express wouldn't really suit people wanting to go to Napier for the day or for that matter wanting a day out in Palmerston North," he said.
Johnson's Travel owner Owen Johnson said Dannevirke people had supported the rail service reasonably well over the years. However, he felt if the service was reversed, running from Napier to Wellington in the morning and then returning to Napier in the late afternoon, it would be far better supported.
Tranz Rail conducted a survey some years ago which proved this but said setting up an office in Napier would be too costly.
The Bay Express is one of the five major rail passenger services that look likely to close unless Australian operator West Coast Railway can be convinced they are viable.
Tranz Rail said yesterday it was quitting its long-distance passenger services, selling four to Melbourne-based West Coast Railway.
West Coast Railway said yesterday they would consider any fresh proposals to run the other five, whose future is uncertain because of the poor passenger numbers.
The Kaimai Express between Auckland and Tauranga, the Geyserland line between Auckland and Rotorua, the Waikato Connection between Auckland and Hamilton, the Bay Express between Napier and Wellington and the Southerner line between Invercargill and Christchurch are earmarked for closure.
West Coast Railway will look at keeping them open if the can be made commercially viable, particularly the Southerner and the Bay Express.
Dunedin city councillor Malcolm Farry said today the Southerner had been allowed to run down. The Dunedin City Council ran a profitable Taieri Gorge rail service and they understood the rail business, Mr Farry said.
"We would look to work with the new owners. We are putting together a business plan to persuade a new owner the Southerner could be a profitable business."
Hamilton mayor Russ Rimmington said the Waikato Connection had only been running a year as an alternative to the SH1 bottleneck.
He said the Government needed to take leadership on the issue of the future of the passenger rail service.
"We are certainly not going to be subsidising a rail service between Auckland and Hamilton. The sale of all these core assets have been a disaster and the chickens are coming home to roost."
Napier mayor Alan Dick said the Bay Express had been run down.
"I see this as an opportunity rather than a threat. It's good news to have a reprieve and be able to spend some time convincing the new owners there is a good opportunity here."
Deadline for Bay Express bookings
Evening News, Dannevirke, 18 July 2001, p. 1.
By Judy Babe
Tranz Rail is taking confirmed bookings for the Bay Express up until the end of September, not August as a Hawke's Bay website stated yesterday. (Note: In fact Tranz Rail altered their web page in the meantime, thus causing the apparent error)
Media spokesperson for Tranz Rail, Sue Foley said after that, it will take suspended bookings, dependent on what's happening with the sale of the Tranz Scenic links to Melbourne based West Coast Railway.
On June 27 it was reported the company planned to close five runs but was considering a review of The Southerner and The Bay Express.
Ormondville woman Donna Heaps, who runs the bed and breakfast at the restored Ormondville railway station, reports there were representatives of West Coast Rail travelling on the Bay Express last week.
Ormondville Railway Preservation Group president Paul Mahoney said no matter what the outcome, the group would continue.
Most bed and breakfast customers came by car, he said.
The majority of railway station visitors arrive on special excursion trains based just north of Wellington and that business will keep going.
It is 110 years since the Bay Express started, albeit under different names and until the main trunk line opened in 1909 it was the most important line in the North Island.
The service was originally the Napier Express, replaced by the Railcar in the 1950s, and then the blue carriage Endeavour.
"Before 1909 the run had all the best gear in the way of engine and carriages," Mr Mahoney says.
The preservation society always celebrates the well known station's birthday on the nearest Saturday to August 11, and this year it is on the exact day.
It is also 100 years since the station took on its present appearance, after being moved from the other side of the track and the verandah added.
"It was no easy feat in those days I imagine," Mr Mahoney said.
Efforts to save Bay Express fail
Evening News, Dannevirke, 18 August 2001, p. 1.
by Judy Babe
"It's sad, but it looks like reality that the Bay Express will cease running at the end of September," Tararua Mayor Maureen Reynolds said yesterday.
Leaders of all the local authorities involved have tried their best to keep the service once it's sold as part of the Tranz Scenic routes Melbourne based company West Coast Rail has bought from Tranz Rail.
Napier Mayor Alan Dick initially lead the charge to save the line but, deciding not to seek re-election, handed the matter over to the Hawke's Bay Regional Council (HBRC).
Yesterday HBRC chairman Ross Bramwell announced his council had declined its financial support to continue the Bay Express.
Mrs Reynolds said she too had made it clear Tararua would not use ratepayers' money to prop up the service, although it could have helped with marketing.
"Our council, like others, has prepared its budget to the end of June 2002. We were originally told it would cost us $200,000 to $300,000 for the next three years to keep the train running.
New costs have come in at $924,016 a year and Mrs Reynolds agrees that is unacceptable.
"No-one likes to use existing services but the demise of the Bay Express now appears inevitable."
An assumption has been that funding would also be available from Transfund.
However, Mr Bramwell said it was unlikely the service would meet certain benefit ratios and if they did, likely funding from Transfund would be modest at best.
"With this situation local government was essentially on its own," Mr Bramwell said.
Support from other councils, apart from Palmerston North City Council and horizons.mw which are still to debate the issue, support has been lukewarm at best or declined.
Mr Bramwell said from the HBRC's perspective the real issue was not so much an alternative passenger service but the contribution rail could make in attracting visitors to the region.
Mrs Reynolds said one suggestion was a service from Napier to Palmerston North, connecting with the main trunk service, which is to continue.
Last Updated: 27/8/2001