Heritage Railway
In 1971, the New Zealand Railways Department announced that they were going to recommence operating a service named the Kingston Flyer as a heritage service. The last use of steam on a regularly scheduled revenue service in New Zealand was on 26 October 1971, and the new Kingston Flyer began operating two months later on 21 December. It utilised the section of the Kingston Branch between Lumsden and Kingston and proved wildly popular. From 1971 until 1979 it operated every summer through to the Easter holiday period, and carried over 30,000 people annually. However, flooding damage to the line between Lumsden and Garston meant that the last Kingston to Invercargill flyer ran on 17 April 1979 and the damaged section of track in question was formally closed in November of that year. For the next three years, the Kingston Flyer operated to other destinations, albeit less successfully.
In 1982, the Kingston Flyer returned to Kingston. The initial intention was to utilise the remaining 20 kilometres of track between Garston and Kingston, but the decision was made to end the line in Fairlight and the additional six kilometres to Garston were closed. Although the original Flyers had typically been operated by locomotives of the Rogers K and V classes, two AB class locomotives were used for the restored service that commenced in 1971, and they were both transferred to Kingston in 1982. They are 4-6-2 "Pacifics" built in New Zealand:
- AB 778 (entered service in 1925)
- AB 795 (entered service in 1927 and once pulled the New Zealand Royal Train)
From 2000 until 2003, K 92, a preserved member of the Rogers K class that headed the original Flyers, was based in Kingston and operated services both by itself and together with the AB engines. The rolling stock used on the line consists of seven wooden passenger carriages that date as far back as 1898.
In November 2008 the operation was offered for sale at $3 million as a going concern.
The Kingston Flyer normally operates seven months of the year, from 1 October to 30 April. Two trains run daily, excluding Christmas Day. It is arguably New Zealand's most famous preserved train. In late August 2009 it was announced that the train would not operate again in the foreseeable future as mounting debt had forced the operation to close. Kingston Acquisitions tried to sell the train in November 2008 to repay about $4.7 million to (finance company) Prudential.
Prudential blocked an offer by United States-based company Railmark to buy the operation for $2.25m, the insurers refusing to accept anything less than the whole debt being cleared.
In November 2009, the Flyer's owners were put into receivership and the train itself put up for sale. The operation was purchased in August 2011 by New Zealand businessman David Bryce who put it back in operation on 29 October 2011.
Read more about this topic: Kingston Flyer
Famous quotes containing the words heritage and/or railway:
“It seems to me that upbringings have themes. The parents set the theme, either explicitly or implicitly, and the children pick it up, sometimes accurately and sometimes not so accurately.... The theme may be “Our family has a distinguished heritage that you must live up to” or “No matter what happens, we are fortunate to be together in this lovely corner of the earth” or “We have worked hard so that you can have the opportunities we didn’t have.””
—Calvin Trillin (20th century)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)