Otago Excursion Trains Trust excursions manager Grant Craig said key Dunedin Railways personnel could be lost if nothing followed a summer trial that had proved popular.
The trust organised an April 3 trip to Oamaru to demonstrate local demand and it sold out within a week.
Dunedin Railways was placed in hibernation by the Dunedin City Council in April last year.
The service had been heavily reliant on tourists and ceased operation amid fallout from Covid-19.
However, Dunedin Venues Management Ltd (DVML) ran a three-month trial of weekend trips this summer, and this was designed to see if a domestic market could be established.
Those rides — return trips from Dunedin to Waitati and Hindon — finished at the weekend.
Mr Craig said staff at Dunedin Railways faced an uncertain winter and it could be difficult to get the trains running again for next summer’s tourist season if momentum was lost.
The service could be popular enough during winter to recoup much of the running costs, he said.
The trust helped to operate the Taieri Gorge Railway before Dunedin Railways was put into hibernation by the city council, which owns Dunedin City Holdings Ltd (DCHL).
Mr Craig said the best thing for Dunedin Railways would be to move it out of DCHL and into a community-based structure.
City councillors are due to consider the future of Dunedin Railways next month.
The excursions trust gave away a family pass for the Oamaru trip on Graeme Fyffe’s Radio Dunedin Saturday breakfast show.
The pass was won by Stephanie Lavelle-Pool, of Dunedin, who said the train service was a great asset to the city and offered something for families to do together.
Dunedin city councillor Jim O’Malley said DVML should be commended for getting the summer trial running at short notice.
"However, they are in the business of running venues, not trains."
He expected that if councillors decided to continue funding Dunedin Railways, there would be a chance to discuss how this should be structured.
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Comments
The council should not be in the business of running trains. It needs to be run as a private business or it needs to be scrapped. It is totally unfair to expect the ratepayers of Dunedin to continue to subsidise a failed recreational venture. The council needs to stop giving money to support expensive hobbies, especially such environmentally damaging ones.
It would be a great pity if the operation was to disappear, as it is an asset to the local tourism industry and offers an iconic glimpse into times past. Scrap it now and it may never return, much like the seemingly insurmountable costs of returning the cable cars up High Street to Mornington. That too would add to the rich tourist experience for both internal and international tourism, once the latter becomes possible again.
Short sighted penny pinching is an unfortunate hallmark of the Kiwi psyche, once gone, these things will be gone forever.