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.