Conservation Comment: Rosemary Penwarden talks passenger rail service

Three Restore Passenger Rail supporters peacefully blocking the northbound entrance to the Terrace Tunnel, Wellington, on April 17. Photo / Restore Passenger Rail

Opinion:

On a recent catch up with Whanganui family, I fell in love all over again with my old home town.

I wandered from the opera house to the river bank, across the bridge and up the Durie Hill elevator. The sun was out, Te Awa Tupua, New Zealand’s only river with personhood status, shimmered brown sparkles on her last lazy stretch to the Tasman, and the light, summery Whanganui breeze carried snippets of memories of another life, growing up in this place.

Friday night shopping on the Avenue with Mum, Dad, brothers and sisters, ending with late night fish and chips on the sitting room floor, splurges of tomato sauce in four corners of newsprint.

Pictures at the Embassy, the icecream seller at halftime. At 5 years old the Wicked Witch of the West made me scream and miss my first ever movie experience.

At 7, I was Marta von Trapp singing with perfect pitch alongside my siblings while escaping the Nazis. Later, how I loved Tommy, that deaf dumb and blind kid. At 64 I can almost recite every word of Pinball Wizard.

Now gone is St Mary’s church in the middle of the Avenue where our family filled an entire pew, where we girls wore hats, and where granddad did the collection before bringing icecream and a tin of pears to our place for lunch. Where granddad once tripped and fell, his first stroke.

Still there, spruced up with new paint, the Red Lion below the lookout, the Rutland across the bridge and the Grand further up the Avenue, sites of underage beer drinking where I hid in the loos when cops arrived.

Then, after reminiscing in my old home, I caught the train back to my new home, Dunedin. Wait, no I didn’t.

A provincial passenger rail service belongs in my memories, wiped off the map like St Mary’s. Why? Because for 40 years governments have sold off, asset stripped, degraded and destroyed what New Zealanders once enjoyed; a nationwide passenger rail service.

Because as a State Owned Enterprise (SOE) KiwiRail is expected to make a profit, and unless you’re a piece of coal down south or a litre of milk further north you’re out of luck, because Fonterra, in my view, matters more to this Government than you and me.

Transport Minister Michael Wood really likes rail and would love to restore passenger rail (he told me so) but is constrained by current funding. So should we wait, write letters, sign petitions and hope for the best?

Been there, done that. Restore Passenger Rail supporters will no longer wait for the Government to do the right thing. We have a small and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.

The climate system is breaking down before our eyes. Those with the least are suffering the most. There is almost no time left to lower emissions and begin the changes to enable our survival.

Restoring passenger rail is one, beginning with properly funding the already popular Capital and Wairarapa Connection trains. Making urban public transport free is another.

Unless we begin lowering emissions in the next two-three years, none of what I say will matter. Like St Mary’s, everything we love will be wiped off the map.

Rosemary Penwarden is a renewed fan of her home town, Whanganui, and supporter of the Restore Passenger Rail campaign

Meeting: Trains for Whanganui, Tuesday, May 23 7.30pm-8.30pm, Whanganui Musicians Club Hall, 65 Drews Ave, Whanganui