I’ve been liv­ing in Pōneke for ten years this Feb­ru­ary, and hon­estly – I can barely believe it. It cer­tainly does­n’t feel like ten years have passed since I was left to fend for myself at Weir House, ready for my first year at uni­ver­sity – but some­how, the time has passed and here we are.

2015 – 2025. how do I look more pro­fes­sion­al on the left?

Wel­ling­ton was always my first choice for uni. I nev­er even applied to any­where else. I was going to do a BA in Polit­ics (the ser­i­ous choice) and Theatre (the fun choice), but after about a month of deal­ing with the Very Big opin­ions of people who will­ingly chose to study polit­ics, I dipped out and star­ted study­ing just theatre and film, with some Clas­sics and Eng­lish classes in there. I went on, after that, to get a MFA in theatre, and now I work in theatre, and have an incred­ible interest in polit­ics, so I sup­pose my study life… sort of worked.

Here I am. Ten long years in Pōneke, a city that I adore, des­pite its many foibles. I’ve per­formed here, played here, found a com­munity. So, between now and the end of the year, I’m going to embrace this city and do ten new, inter­est­ing or strange things to cel­eb­rate my time here; reflect­ing on the last ten years along the way. I’ll write an art­icle about each, tell you some stor­ies, and maybe you might even find some new things about this place or look at the city a little dif­fer­ently.

So.

#1 – Travel long dis­tance via steam train

People know me as the train girlie. It’s a title I sort of fell into, due to my sig­ni­fic­ant interest in the world of trains. If you know me bet­ter, you’d know I’m more into map­ping, and train routes, rather than trains them­selves, but I digress.

I’m from Tairāwhiti.

Gis­borne does­n’t really have trains. We did, once, with the Gis­borne-Wel­ling­ton train route being one my mum used to travel on a lot when she was young­er, but since the early 2000s, the track­’s been unused. There’s a ton of loc­al interest in bring­ing it back, but that’s all far in the future.

These days, Gis­borne has one train.

It’s called the WA165, and it’s a steam train. It runs from the Gis­borne train sta­tion and out to Muri­wai on pub­lic hol­i­days and spe­cial times across the year. It is also pos­sibly the only train line in the world to run across an air­port run­way. The train has to get per­mis­sion from Air Traffic Con­trol to cross!

A train cross­ing the run­way!

When I was a kid, I remem­ber tak­ing this train all the way out to Beach Loop – that’s 33 km south of Gis­borne on the Palmer­ston North – Gis­borne line – but since then, the rail line has been com­pletely washed out, and des­pite pub­lic interest, there’s not a whole lot of gov­ern­ment thought towards fix­ing the line. Thus, these days, the WA165 runs on its merry way 16km out to Muri­wai and it’s nice. But it’s not a train sys­tem, and it’s cer­tainly not any­thing more than a fun exper­i­ence for tour­ists.

Which brings us to Wel­ling­ton.

Des­pite our many com­plaints about the Wel­ling­ton pub­lic trans­port net­work, and the many val­id improve­ments that are needed (the day the trains actu­ally run dur­ing the hol­i­days my life will be com­plete), our six train lines are incred­ibly well traf­ficked and provide a neces­sary pub­lic trans­port link to the com­muters of our city.

There’s also a lot of her­it­age train ser­vices that run out of Pōneke.

And as I write this, though likely not when I pub­lish it, I’m on one of them!

If you’re not famil­i­ar with my work, I’m a theatre­maker here in Wel­ling­ton. I’m also very, very inter­ested in his­tory. My fath­er was a his­tory teach­er, and my par­ents both encour­aged my interest in his­tory grow­ing up. I run a radio show on Wel­ling­ton Access Radio about artist­ic his­tory and have done shows in the Her­it­age Fest­iv­al for the last two years. I’m pre­dom­in­antly inter­ested in epi­demi­olo­gic­al his­tory and the­at­ric­al his­tory, but also in trans­port his­tory; what we had in the past and can take from for the future.

Thus, a steam train. There’s a sur­pris­ingly large amount of her­it­age ser­vices that run in this coun­try, but I saw that Steam Incor­por­ated was offer­ing a week­end pass to Whan­ganui for Wel­ling­ton Anniversary Week, and… well. I have a mate in Whan­ganui who I’ve been try­ing to see for a long while. Two birds.

The interi­or of the train car­riage.

Steam Inc. offers a ton of tours, and they’re remark­ably well priced. Just over $100 for a return trip to Whan­ganui is noth­ing to scoff at, espe­cially since this return trip has air­con, snacks and bath­rooms, and isn’t the hellish exper­i­ence that is an Inter­city bus. This isn’t sponsored, they don’t know I’m writ­ing this, but I appre­ci­ate good ser­vice, and they’ve been great.

And so, this morn­ing, I hopped onto the train in Par­a­pa­raumu, and off we went.

There’s some­thing kind of magic­al about steam trains. They’re louder, and bumpi­er; there’s no faint elec­tric hum of the over­head lines, and the seats are wider and more com­fort­able. I’ve been on a lot of trains – none of them have ever been this keen on pas­sen­ger com­fort; but I sup­pose that’s the thing about the time in his­tory where items were designed for com­fort first.

Exclud­ing the steam that gets into the car­riages when you go through tun­nels. That bit is less fun.

On the plat­form at Palmer­ston North.

It also feels a bit like you’re on a mys­tic­al jour­ney to ~some­where else~ when you’re rid­ing in a steam train. If it was­n’t for my Michael Crichton nov­el and my ear­buds, I could be trav­el­ing forth across the Span­ish rivi­era, en-route to meet Her­cule Poirot to solve a baff­ling crime with an equally as baff­ling vil­lain.

The his­tory that I’ve found myself in is appar­ent. The car­riage I’m sit­ting in is eighty-sev­en years old, all soft grey seats and wire racks. In this same train, there’s car­riages from even earli­er, marked up with ‘First Class’. The bath­rooms have NZ Rail brand­ing, and then, of course – there’s the steam engine itself.

The lives that have been built inside this car­riage are innu­mer­able, and the stor­ies are too. I’ve nev­er traveled on the Mar­ton – New Ply­mouth rail line, as pas­sen­ger trains just don’t travel it any­more, but I can ima­gine some of the worlds of those who did in the past; who they are and what they’ve seen.

We’ve passed rail­way sta­tions that are totally dis­used now, but way back when they were an import­ant stop­ping point on long rail jour­neys. You see old houses from the rail line that would have been stand­ing proud twenty years ago. We should­n’t glor­i­fy his­tory, but recog­nize it for what it was, and this train has seen it all.

On the plat­form at Mar­ton.

I feel very priv­ileged to get to be on this ser­vice today.

In a just world it would be more fre­quent and more access­ible. Aotearoa could be a bas­tion of long dis­tance rail travel if we’d just make the effort. The beauty and mys­tery of going on a steam train is one thing, but I’d hope to see in my life­time elec­tric rail that has more longev­ity. If I could take a train home to Tairāwhiti, I’d cer­tainly be going there more often.

On Monday I return back to Pōneke, via steam train and elec­tric train. This exper­i­ence has been won­der­ful, and eye-open­ing, Steam Inc has been incred­ibly kind, and I’m regret­ting that I haven’t been on one of these trains soon­er. I truly can­’t recom­mend the exper­i­ence highly enough.

I just wish we could have more of it.

In future weeks I’ll be doing nine more excit­ing, inter­est­ing, or bizarre Pōneke things, and telling some more stor­ies. Join me, if you like.