It was good to see the KiwiRail crew celebrating the 1000th wagon in the new Hillside railway workshop recently. This shows what happens when New Zealand backs practical industry.

This was made possible by the rebuilding of the new Hillside Workshops for $105 million. It is exciting to see good progress with New Zealand’s KiwiRail and the employment opportunities for those that work at the Hillside Workshops.

When the Otago-Central Railway was closing, a group of volunteers campaigned to have the Dunedin to Middlemarch section retained. This was the beginning of the Taieri Gorge Railway Ltd.

On December 1 2017 it was renamed Dunedin Railways Ltd: it is wholly owned by the Dunedin City Council.

To the right of our beautiful iconic Dunedin Railway Station, widely considered New Zealand’s most photographed building stands a large white tent.

All maintenance activity is carried out there, carriages inside the white plastic and scaffold tent and locomotives out in the open in all weathers. This even involves lifting, using massive jacks, to replace a set of wheels.

This has been ongoing for roughly five years. At the present time Dunedin Railways rolling stock is located on a very narrow stretch of rail between the Dunedin Railway Station and the Toitu Otago Settlers Museum.

The old locomotive repair centre in Cumberland St, 1.8km from the Railway Station and owned by Kiwi Rail, has been left empty for some time.

The building has had its rail connections, asbestos and copper piping removed and is tragically being prepared for demolition. This amazing facility is a purpose built structure made for locomotive maintenance and repairs.

This workshop would be ideal for the needs of Dunedin Railways.

Dunedin Railways has six diesel electric locomotives and a fleet of passenger carriages. With these premises, though large in size, the possibilities for other opportunities, in time, would be greatly enhanced such as the restoration and preservation of other historic locomotives and carriages.

We need to keep up and retain the skills of this specialised workforce.

Dunedin Railways also runs Dunedin Scenic Train Tours which is vital economically for Dunedin Tourism and employment.

At the moment Dunedin Railways is renting their white plastic and scaffold tent. The financial cost to the Dunedin ratepayer or tax payer, of building a new purpose built workshop would be much more than it would cost to be given the Cumberland St premises.

After all, that facility is a public property and would be of significant value to Dunedin.

It is vital that we stop the demolition of this building and that we have the vision and foresight to see it repurposed for our own dedicated Dunedin Railways engineers.

This would also honour those dedicated volunteers who saved the Taieri Gorge Rail.

  • Peter Kennedy is a Dunedin rail enthusiast.