‘Do We Really Need Trains? I’m Just Hinting At A Preference’

‘Finance Minister Nicola Willis has defended her government's communications with Korea over the ferry project's cancellation, and hinted at a preference for smaller non-rail port facilities.’    RNZ

Look, I’m just the Minister of Finance here. But all I’m saying is that maybe we don’t need freight trains on the KiwiRail ferries. Has anyone thought about that?

Bear with me, because I’ve done my research. It turns out that around the world, there just aren’t as many rail ferries as there used to be. What does that tell us?

Okay, sure, maybe it just tells us that nowadays there are lots more long bridges and underwater tunnels than before. Because of, you know, engineering. But you know what? Those are just facts. Details. I’m blue-sky thinking here. 

And what I’m blue-sky thinking is, if you didn’t have rail ferries how bad would it be?

You could just unload the freight trains onto trucks that drive onto the ferry, and then at the other end of the sailing the trucks drive off the ferry and you take the freight off them and put them on trains again.

I’ve heard that’s how they do it around the world, in various unspecified places. And it really isn’t a problem.

Or – and bear with me here – if it is a problem, why load on and off freight trains at all?

Why don’t we just have trucks that drive the whole journey, and then straight onto the ferry, and then straight off at the other end and keep going? Are there really any downsides to that, just saying?

Now you may go ‘But Finance Minister Willis, wouldn’t that mean there were no freight trains at all between, say, Picton and Christchurch’?

And you know what I would say? I’d say ‘Exactly! But do you know what there is between Picton and Christchurch? A road! A beautiful road. And what is a road, if not a place for trucks to drive on?’

And also: Do you know that at many places between Picton and Christchurch the road and railway run right beside each other? As in parallel? I know! That is unnecessary duplication, plain and simple. Or as this government calls it, waste that needs to be cut.