Next year will be the 150th anniversary of public rail networks in New Zealand. In 1988 we had the Rail 125 in which I made a bit more of a personal contribution to restoration at some of the rail heritage sites around North Canterbury. So now we will have Rail 150 and it’s interesting to note as a contrast to last time that the name “Ferrymead 150” has not been adopted.
That means we will see a great week of festivities, largely around Christchurch, which I think will include various mainline steam excursions of all kinds of characters.
Here by way of illustration is a steam excursion train heading up to Arthur’s Pass this morning, operated by Mainline Steam.
