The Kingston Flyer is back on track.
The historic steam train should be operating again as a tourist venture by mid-October, after Marlborough vineyard owner David Bryce signed a purchase agreement yesterday.
"It's been a while, but we got there in the end," Mr Bryce (52) said.
"I want to get it back running again. It's been sad seeing it tied up in receivership." The train, which was operated as a tourist attraction by Kingston Acquisitions Ltd, has been idle since the company went into receivership in November 2009, owing Prudential Mortgage Capital Company $4.7 million.
In the two years since, several Kingston businesses have closed, including the Kingston Tavern, which Mr Bryce also now owns and hopes to reopen next week.
He would not reveal how much the deal cost him, but the contract included two steam locomotives, the vintage carriages, the Kingston Tavern, storage sheds, a 14km section of track to Fairlight, six residential lots and other development land in the village, totalling about 80ha.
He said he planned to put the empty land on the market and then begin to operate the train as the tourist attraction "that it once was".
Mr Bryce has been working closely with Around the Mountains project manager Mike Barnett to link the train with the cycle trail's end at Fairlight and take cyclists back to Kingston.
The proposed $7 million cycle trail, if given resource consent, will run from Nicholas Station to Kingston, a journey of 184km.
Mr Barnett said he was excited the train had a new owner. The Kingston Flyer and the cycle trail would be "hugely popular".
"It just fits really well to have steam at both ends, with the Earnslaw [on Lake Wakatipu] and now the Flyer."
Mr Bryce, who is originally from Riverton, moved to Lumsden in 1968, in time to see the Flyer launched in 1971.
He had only become interested in buying the venture during the past three months, when he saw it advertised online.
"I had a stroke [in] early March and that makes you think about life, and then I saw it [the train for sale]."
Mr Bryce said he was humbled to have the chance to be part of the train's heritage.
He hoped to establish a wine label in association with the Kingston Flyer trademark and also wanted to set up a heritage trust.
A good percentage of the wine profits would go to the trust to restore and preserve the engines, he said.
He had employed former Kingston Flyer engine driver Russell Glendinning as the train's operations manager.
- Olivia Caldwell
