KEY POINTS:
The swing of the pendulum is almost complete. As political rallying cries go they don't come much more to the old school left than: "nationalise the railways."
Despite the disappointing reality across much of New Zealand, trains continue to hold romantic place in popular culture. Likewise they remain
a flash point in the history-telling of the left and right wing ideologues.
On the right, rail invokes nightmarish scenarios of state-owned waste. Railways corporation had 21,000 workers when it first faced the wrath of the new right in 1986. Ironically the shock was delivered by Labour party minister Richard Prebble who slashed 16,000 jobs in six years.
With today's price tag of $665 million for a business which has historically swung between "not very profitable" and "horrendously unprofitable" there will plenty of questions asked about whether this was money well spent.
But Michael Cullen will have no problems brushing aside complaints about the price and the mess the rail system has become over the past 20 years.
That's because he has his own slice of popular history to play with.
In 1993 it was the National Government that sold the railways to Michael Fay and David Richwhite (and a US rail operator Wisconsin) for just $328 million. That was at a time when it certainly wasn't making money but had a lot more assets than it does now.
The poor quality of the sales process, the subsequent asset stripping of the business and its ill-fated float on the stock exchange are now the stuff of popular legend. The whole affair has come to represent a low point in the history of state asset sales.
In fact the story of TranzRail is one Cullen and his colleagues pull out like a scary bed-time story to remind voters what National governments might have in store for them.
It has worked so well that National has been forced to rule out any asset sales in their first term of Government - despite the fact that many of their core supporters see the sale of partial stakes in commercially focused assets as very sensible.
It looks like Toll has done allright out of the deal. They bought the company in 2003 for about $400 million and have built up the road freight business into a profitable enterprise, which they will keep.
Those who follow these things say they've done a pretty good job with the ferries and haven't done too bad job with the trains - although that's based on pretty low expectations.
They were never going to put any major capital into the train network because the profitability just wasn't up to the level required by its shareholders.
In fact they've needed a Government subsidy to keep things ticking over.
It was during the renegotiation of that subsidy that the buy-back idea seems to have germinated.
Labour has also committed an unspecified amount - but talked hundreds of millions - to further investment in the train network.
Helen Clark has talked big about a future of modern trains, easing the pressure on roads and the environmental benefits.
At last we may finally get a definitive answer as to whether a rail network can work in this country - if it is provided with adequate capital yet is still required to run to a sensible business model.
In the end it will be up to New Zealanders to get on board.
If they don't then this could prove to be just another expensive chapter in the politically charged history of New Zealand rail.
