On board the TranzAlpine, where five hours of changing landscapes unfold outside the window. Photo / Miles Holden
The TranzAlpine is a triumphant feat of engineering, a journey past rivers, mountains and lakes, and an unmissable introduction to the South Island’s wild West Coast.
I hadn’t come to New Zealand’s South Island to ride trains.
Like most, I came here with dreams of long-distance hikes, vast glaciers, catching sight of a whale’s tail, or maybe even hurling myself off a bridge with a bungee rope around my legs. But although the world’s 12th-largest island excels at adrenaline-filled fun, it was the TranzAlpine – with five hours of the world’s most incredible scenery – that left the longest, lasting impression.
The TranzAlpine is not quite sure if it’s part of a passenger network or a tourist train. By necessity, it’s a bit of both.
This journey passes through deep wilderness and, for many travellers, is the key to unlocking the sparsely populated yet incredibly beautiful landscapes of the West Coast. It provides a vital connection from Christchurch to Greymouth, where hire cars can be collected and onward transport leads to the spectacular sights further south. But this KiwiRail service is also (quite rightly) marketed on the back of the scenery along the line. Train staff point out highlights over loudspeakers, and headsets provide further onboard commentary. Most excitingly, the TranzAlpine has open-air observation cars, where the views can be savoured by those brave enough to endure the cold.
Though most passengers are from overseas, the route and the views from it were a significant source of national pride to the Kiwis I met on my travels, and many told me how pleased they were that I was incorporating it into my journey.
But there wasn’t much hint of the grandeur to come when checking in at Christchurch. This was no airline-style procedure, just a case of making sure your presence was known and tickets checked. On boarding, I made myself at home in a standard class (Scenic) carriage. There’s a higher (Scenic Plus) class, offering extra legroom, in-seat food and drink and a dedicated observation car. In Scenic, we still had very large windows, a cafe and an observation car – there isn’t really a bad way to ride this train.
Rolling out of Christchurch, the city centre gave way to suburbs, then the agricultural scenery of the Canterbury Plains – but after an hour, we reached Springfield, and the journey began defying expectations. Our loco, humming quietly on the platform, seemed ready to charge head-first at the imposing, snowcapped mountains ahead. Instead, we began to ascend the Waimakariri River Gorge, with the first sightings of this open, braided waterway bringing bright-blue water cascading down from the Southern Alps. Along with most other passengers, I duly headed to the observation car. There was a friendly camaraderie as we peered over the railings – designed to discourage getting too close to tunnel edges and the perilously steep drops of the bridges and viaducts we crossed.
The most startling was Staircase Viaduct, 7m above the gully after which it’s named, crossed in an instant in the interval between exiting one tunnel and entering another.
As thrilling as it was seeing all this from the open air, there was no escaping the effect of ascending into the mountains. The temperature was falling fast, and I retreated inside to warm up.
We passed from Swiss-style mountain climbing to crossing the high plains around Craigieburn. The openness of the terrain made for excellent peak-spotting, with 1860m Mt Binser standing sentinel in the distance. We paused at Cass, a railway settlement which, remarkably, has a permanent population of one. Fittingly, that one person is an employee of KiwiRail. After donning a few more layers, I returned to the observation car as we made the stately, final crossing of the Waimakariri.
At 739m, Arthur’s Pass formed a symbolic point to break the journey. A carriage-load of passengers disembarked to ride back to Christchurch; others headed off to explore the hiking trails and mountain ascents of the eponymous national park. I was content with a platform leg-stretch, watching the addition of extra locomotives to the front and rear of our train.
This was to guarantee trouble-free passage on the next leg through the Ōtira Tunnel, which descends 250m over 8.5km, and sees the observation car briefly closed.
On exiting, the train emerged on the far side of the Southern Alps and into a lusher, greener, lower-altitude landscape. The Ōtira River’s splintered strands were now accompanied by denser trackside foliage, and the air felt noticeably warmer and more humid.
The scenery had been so consistently lovely that it was tempting, by this point, to dismiss another river crossing or another tiny lineside township as par for the course, and start thinking about the end of the line at Greymouth. As if switching costumes for the finale, the final piece of eye candy was a pair of lakes: smaller Lake Poerua and then Lake Brunner, stretching away to the south and west, the view over the water from the station at Moana dominated by Mt Te Kinga, with higher snowcapped peaks behind. The odd fishing and waterski boat were gliding on the lake as we continued from Moana. Another destination scribbled on my list of places to head back to.
If it felt a little like normal life was returning for the final 37km, this was all relative. From Greymouth, the Great Coast Rd heads north, offering views as equally sweeping and dramatic as the mountain crossing I’d just undertaken. To the south lie Franz Josef and Fox glaciers, and the highest of NZ peaks, Aoraki/Mt Cook. Beyond that, misty Fiordland. From Greymouth onwards, though, there’s only roads – all the more reason to savour this most superlative of trains.
Start/Finish: Christchurch/Greymouth
Distance: 224km
Duration: 4hr 50min
Ticket types: Head to 12Go (12go.com) to book Scenic and Scenic Plus tickets; buy multiday rail tours and other packages from Great Journeys New Zealand (greatjourneysnz.com).
When to go: The TranzAlpine is a lovely trip at any time of year, but book well ahead if travelling in peak season (late December and January).
The train can be ridden as a return round trip from Christchurch, either giving four and a half hours at Arthur’s Pass or an hour at Greymouth.
More info: newzealand.com is the best place to start planning.
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Reproduced with permission from Lonely Planet © 2025.