[kinow]

That is a good point but I think it doesn't apply everywhere.that has a similar shape. New Zealand has a similar shape but without railways interconnecting cities. You cannot cross the country, the islands, or even regions by train.

I think this could be a variable to contribute to a good coverage and infrastructure... but there are probably more factors involved.

[andrewl]

The population density is probably one factor. New Zealand has 5.34 million people in 103,000 square miles. At the other extreme you have Hong Kong with 7.5 million people in 430 square miles. Each mile of track gives service to a much larger percentage of the population in Hong Kong than New Zealand. The same goes for a lot of the United States. The coastal corridors in the United States are population dense, but the interior less so.

[phire]

Population density is one thing. Another issue is timing.

New Zealand was a really young country when railway technology came along, and didn't really have enough time or money to invest in a good railway network before other technology came along.

Airplanes are the perfect technology for NZ's geography, because they just fly over everything. There are actually a few places in NZ that received passenger airline service in the 30s before they received a railway connection (namely Gisborne), and many other places that never received railway connections.

At the same time, NZ was one of the fastest adopters of the automobiles, second only to America.

I think viable cars and airplanes had taken another 25 years to arrive, NZ might have had a much more complete railway network, with a much better chance of surviving intact into the modern era.

[kinow]

Didn't know about these historical facts, looks like timing really contributed to the current situation in New Zealand. When I was in Auckland some years ago, I remember NZ trying to bring some railway services back, before the pandemic.

I never got to travel on these, but I'm hoping to do that when I'm there again, probably next year. I see the website is still the same, so if anyone is going to NZ: https://www.greatjourneysnz.com/.

And to be fair, looks like you can more or less cross the country, as long as you don't plan to get all the way to Invercargill.

[phire]

The railway services NZ are trying to bring back are regional commuter services. Auckland to Hamilton (now in operation); Auckland to Tauranga; Wellington to Palmerston North (Capital Connection, has been in operation for 35 years, about to be upgraded to battery-electric trains, since only half the route is electrified).

And also the vague idea of local rail service around Christchurch (interestingly, a private company bought the old DMUs from Auckland's local fleet after electrification and are just starting to run special trains for Rugby games).

Part of the problem is that there is only really only three metro areas in New Zealand. Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Everything else isn't really large enough to provide enough demand for a proper intercity route. And Christchurch isn't even on the same island, so you can't have a proper intercity train with the ferry getting in the way.

So the only potentially viable intercity route is Auckland to Wellington.

And apart from Hamilton and Palmerston North, (which already have commuter trains) there is absolutely nothing in the middle. The same distance in Europe or the US's eastern corridor would service 4-6 decently sized metro areas, and provide plenty of extra demand.

There just isn't enough potential demand to put a high-speed rail line through there. And without the high-speed rail, it's a 10 hour train trip that has zero chance of competing with a 1 hour plane ride.

Christchurch to Wellington is even worse. 6 hour train ride, at least an hour waiting for the ferry, 3.5 hour ferry ride. The plane does it in at little as 25 min in the air, there isn't enough time to reach cruising altitude. There is a reason why the route used to be serviced by an overnight ferry.

> And to be fair, looks like you can more or less cross the country, as long as you don't plan to get all the way to Invercargill

Yeah... but those aren't "intercity trains". They are scenic tourist trains that just so happen to be running along old intercity routes. Not bad as a tourism experience, but overpriced and not optimised for transportation needs.

The fact that you can't book both the Interislander ferry and costal pacific on the same website is very telling. They are literally run by the same company.

----------------------

If you are serious about the Christchurch to Invercargill, there is now a private company offering the occasional weekend trip: https://www.mainlander.co.nz/train-trips/the-mainlander-rail...

Same company that's providing the Rugby special trains, but this is using the old Capital Connection rolling stock. The train usually runs day trips up to Arthur's pass for cruise ships, but when there is a gap in that schedule they are running these Christchurch to Dunedin and Christchurch to Invercargill excursions.

Even more touristy than great journeys.

[kinow]

I remember the announcement some years ago of the Auckland-Hamilton train. I think initially it had limited schedule, but from what I recall the usage was quite good after the launch (I think it was before or just after the pandemic). Good to know it's in operation now.

> And also the vague idea of local rail service around Christchurch (interestingly, a private company bought the old DMUs from Auckland's local fleet after electrification and are just starting to run special trains for Rugby games).

Hadn't heard about this! Interesting, and good idea to have a service for the games.

> So the only potentially viable intercity route is Auckland to Wellington.

This one would probably be quite busy. I had to fly Auckland-Wellington quite a bit as an engineer, and our managers & executives travel quite more (NIWA, a CRI that now I believe has merged with another one and changed its name).

Eventually I had to go to the capital to vote or for the embassy, or for a tech event. All these trips were always via airplane, but I'd be happy to get a fast train or a night train as in Europe.

> If you are serious about the Christchurch to Invercargill, there is now a private company offering the occasional weekend trip: https://www.mainlander.co.nz/train-trips/the-mainlander-rail...

Learned another new thing, thank you! I plan to go to Invercargill when I visit again to see if I can see the Aurora Australis or maybe check out where they have the MetService radiosonde launch. From what I recall MetService used to launch one from Invercargill near the airport (or I could be confused with a weather station or another climate monitoring station they had there).

What about options for those living up north? When I was still in Auckland some of my co-workers were looking into moving further West/North (there were too many people moving to South Auckland/Raglan/Hamilton at that time). But I remember the transport options involved one or more buses, and a ferry in the case of a co-worker that bought a house in... Hobsonville I believe. But the ferry didn't run all days, and had a limited schedule compared to the one for Waiheke or Devenport. Has that improved?

I always thought it'd be nice if there was a short train line connecting Devenport to Cape Reinga, as all the times I went to Cape Reinga or to take someone to Russel I'd have to drive or find a private shuttle.

Thanks!

[phire]

I agree that if you put a high-speed line between Auckland and Wellington, and get the travel time down to 3-4 hours, people would use it. It would actually be faster than going to the airport for central Auckland, or anything further north.

But high speed lines are expensive, and NZ just doesn't have anywhere near the population density to justify it.

As for night trains, I'm pretty sure they can only exist where they are bridging multiple viable day train routes. Which is why that huge gap between Hamilton and Palmerston North is an issue.

And the route might actually be a bit short for a night train. If they electrified the entire distance (instead of using a diesel the whole way despite the fact 80% of the route is electrified) and did some improvements, they could probably get it down to an 8 hour trip.

> What about options for those living up north?

TBH, I'm not a fan of Auckland and don't really know what's going on with local public transport.

[kinow]

That is definitely a factor, especially comparing Japan & HK with NZ.

[renewiltord]

Population density is not accidental. HK has towers and greenery vs Anglophone culture which is to build homes sprawled into the greenery.

[leonidasrup]

The US urban sprawl in 50s, 60s was not cultural and not by accident but planed part of civil defense.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47815910

[gorfian_robot]

didn't NZ have a decent inter-city train service in the past but no longer does bc cars won out in the end?