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Speaker 1: Domestic flights gone up in price quite significantly, so it's

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Speaker 1: prompted the calls again about restoring the Wellington to Auckland

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Speaker 1: night train. Now this idea has been around for quite

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Speaker 1: a long time, but it's been brought up again in

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Speaker 1: a Greater Wellington Regional Council meeting last week. The council's

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Speaker 1: Transport Committee chair Thomas Nash loves the idea. Hi, Thomas, Hey, Heather,

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Speaker 1: would you really use it?

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Speaker 2: I would, yeah, I'd certainly do it. Maybe going one way,

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Speaker 2: maybe train up, fly back.

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Speaker 1: How often do you have to go to Auckland.

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Speaker 2: I don't have to go that often, but probably you know,

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Speaker 2: once every couple of months. Maybe.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, do you have any kids?

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Speaker 2: I do? You have two kids, and bringing them on

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Speaker 2: on the train might not be the best option for

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Speaker 2: the other side.

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Speaker 1: Thinking about that, I was thinking about your poor partner

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Speaker 1: who has to be the one who's like soloing overnight

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Speaker 1: so you could go on a train.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's a good point. But the thing is

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Speaker 2: a lot of people kids will know kids, they'll do

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Speaker 2: business travel, they'll travel up the night before because they

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Speaker 2: don't want to get the red eye in the morning,

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Speaker 2: which is also disruptive. So it's it's essentially the same

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Speaker 2: as that, instead of paying for a hotel the night

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Speaker 2: before your fresh few meetings in the morning, you just

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Speaker 2: get the night train one way.

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Speaker 1: But then where do you shower?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean some of the cabins have showers and

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Speaker 2: then on some of the Like in Europe, the night

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Speaker 2: trains are absolutely cranking at the moment. More and more

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Speaker 2: services are opening up. They're really well patronized, and that's

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Speaker 2: partly because of as you said in the intro, cost

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Speaker 2: of flights is going up, so other options become more competitive. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: But okay, so Thomas, we always talk about Europe, but

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Speaker 1: then we do a stink New Zealand version. Is our

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Speaker 1: version actually going to have shower, isn't it?

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Speaker 2: Well? I think it would have to for it to work.

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Speaker 2: I mean the way to do it would be to

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Speaker 2: go out to the market and say, hey, we've got

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Speaker 2: this almost completely electrified Northoundland main train line between Auckland

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Speaker 2: and Wellington. Are there any private operators out there that

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Speaker 2: would like to run a service. They can come in

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Speaker 2: and have a look, do their own studies and set

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Speaker 2: it up and see if it makes sense. I sense

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Speaker 2: and some of the other people have looked into this

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Speaker 2: in mw ZALM that there would be an enough of

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Speaker 2: the market to make this work and then we'd get

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Speaker 2: a service that would be well, you could, you couldn't,

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Speaker 2: and that would be the point, right, Like we invest

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Speaker 2: a lot of money in the North is the main

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Speaker 2: trunk line renewal of tracks and track infrastructure to move

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Speaker 2: freight and passengers in the Auckland and Wellington metro areas,

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Speaker 2: But we don't use the track between Auckland and Wellington.

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Speaker 2: Say that's between Harness, Snork and Hamilton, let's say is

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Speaker 2: very much underutilized. So what was major public asset that

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Speaker 2: we don't use? So we're just saying I think the

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Speaker 2: people who are pitching for this are saying, let's go

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Speaker 2: out to the market and see if anybody wants to

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Speaker 2: use that for a night service.

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Speaker 1: And so how much would it cost if we weren't

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Speaker 1: subsidizing it for a ticket?

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Speaker 2: I mean I've seen some back of the envelope calculations

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Speaker 2: that say you could do it for one hundred bucks

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Speaker 2: each way Thomas unsubsidized. Yeah, because basically you would have

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Speaker 2: you would have have maybe various services, you'd have the

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Speaker 2: first class maybe Cavin and then you'd have kind of

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Speaker 2: business economy type seats which you know, life black thing,

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Speaker 2: and and then you would you would be able to

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Speaker 2: charge different different prices to different levels of service. And

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Speaker 2: I think on that basis you could. You could certainly

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Speaker 2: make it work and people people have you wouldn't. The

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Speaker 2: thing about it is all you need to do is

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Speaker 2: get the trains and the new trains and then you

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Speaker 2: would you would basically if you're a private operator, you

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Speaker 2: would pay off the trains over the over the kind

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Speaker 2: of ten fifteen, twenty years of the of the contract

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Speaker 2: that you've got to run it, and that would that

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Speaker 2: would be doable.

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Speaker 1: Thomas, it's good to talk to you. Thank you very much.

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Speaker 1: Running us through. That's Thomas Nash, great at Wellington Regional Council.

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Speaker 1: For more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to

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