Train petition given to ORC

I guess the Dunedin Metro would go well with the proposed Burnside Industrial Park (the sites of the old freezing works and the disused cement works north of Green Islands). One can set up the "Burnside station" west of the Caversham Tunnel, which directly serves the industral park, and through a pedestrian bridge / tunnel across the motorway, the Green Island residential area. Fortunately the rail corridor between Burnside and Abbortsford is quite wide, extra platforms / alignments can be set aside for double tracking and for the future Brighton Line.
Many workers (particularly ones from out of town or overseas) and students do not have cars, and a regular rail service will make travelling to work much easier and can replace many bus lines.

...every coffer is being thrown at the $200 million stadium. Another few million here or there, no problems, and so far $50 million gassing about it. But commuter trains? $2 million? "Get off the grass!" Another one for the now bulging 'too costly basket'.
This, for one, is why most don't want a stadium, when there are far more fundamental issues. Dunedin was better 30 years ago, with buses frequent, and commuter trains. Those who say anti stadium wish to lag behind the times are supporting something that will do just that, given our public transport infrastructure as it now stands. And it's worthy to note, and ironic; here's Hillside, right behind Carisbrook, busy churning out rebuilt ex British Rail carriages destined for the Wellington and Auckland commuter rail systems? It certainly makes a point of how archaic we are in priorities. We would even keep our city some more work by building a few more for ourselves.
The comment that 5 buses could be bought for that cost, well, hello Mr. Deaker. Has it not occurred to you, trains can easily carry 5 bus loads, or far more? Perhaps you should come down to the rail station on a day when the larger cruise ships are in, trains of 20 cars, 450 or so people on board, headed up the gorge.
Instead of a couple of million, (possibly more as double track and suitable train control infrastructure would require re-instatement, but still an investment) they have chucked $37 million at the stadium, and the same again at their own proposed other self appointed, similarly ratepayer funded waterfront crystal palace (with multi million dollar views) with that’s passed most people's radar with the larger one a kilometre or so way on Awatea St.

Obviously the DCC or whoever were to run it would have to let the Taieri Gorge run it and the DCC/Government subsidise it so if it was to run at a loss etc that the TGR wouldn't lose money.
I think a Palmerston-Dunedin and a Gore-Dunedin morning and evening commuter service for workers coming into town for work and going home would be complemented.
But during the day Port Chalmers-Mosgiel would be the normal services running a shuttle every 30 minutes or an hour in non peak time.
Stations that could be introduced/reinstated as also stated above: Port Chalmers, Ravensbourne, St Lenoards, Universtity, Dunedin, Caversham, Kakorai, Green Island/Abbotsford, Wingatui, Mosgiel.
Stations could be put in other strategic places, eg near the Warehouse/Pak n Save etc.
But it is a very do-able option for Dunedin, just have the railway line which passes through the main parts of the city and have the feeder bus services going to the stations and base it on what Perth has - a great bus network that all ends up at the railway stations to feed those passengers onto their destinations. Would be good to see happen, brand new railcars would be the go, more fuel efficient and modern technology.
Sure Dunedin is a small city but rail could work, if it worked in the 60's and 70's why not in the 2000's when there are a lot more issues?

We really have to balance between costs and benefits.
Fortunately Dunedin already has an existing rail line that is close to most flat urban areas. This reduces a lot of land purchase and alignment costs.
Trains are most suitable for flat terrain and especially valleys, where it is usually served by only *one* motorway, which is liable for congestion as the area becomes developed (such as Mosgiel, Waldronville, Abbortsford and Green Island.
For the hill areas and the Penisula, let the buses do their job and we can reconfigure the bus route so that they complement the rail service by linking to the local rail station. (e.g. Buses linking Outram and north Mosgiel to the Mosgiel station)
Area north of Port Charlmers do not really justify rail service due to low population. However a Port-Charlmers - Mosgiel metro service (say 15 minutes a train) would really boost the transport capacity and encourage growth of suburbs such as Mosgiel, Fairfield, Abbotsford and Waldronville, as the motorway is no longer the bottleneck.
We are also fortunate that the railway line is only < 5km south of the airport, so as the patronage increases, we just need to lay a spur line connecting the airport to the Main South Line and let the Dunedin Metro serve the airport (one train out of two serving the airport).
Also we can refurbish the existing stations such as Mosgiel, Wingatui, Abbotsford, Kensington, Dunedin Central and Port Charlmers, and we can add these new stations:
Mosgiel East (1.5km east of Mosgiel, to serve the newly developed area)
Green Island
Caversham
University (which would go well with the new stadium)
Ravernsbourne
St Leonards.
For the trains, we may get some second hand diesel stocks left over after the electrification of the ARTA network as for short term, it would not justify electrification, since given the length of the route, we would only need 4-6 train sets on the Dunedin Metro.
Then in the (possibly distant) future, there is also an option to build the "Brighton Line", which branches off the Green Island station, through Waldronville to Brighton, or even Taieri Mouth, should these suburb start growing.