Great to see how rail travel used to be, when the journey was half the fun! I wonder if anyone has any footage of the Northerner? I noticed the Silver Star in this video.
what we should be doing today too much traffic on the roads I miss this sort of travel, okay people are in a hurry so they fly they can have that our regional passenger services need to get up and going sure there are no food stops well the trains can have that on board
Shame about the continuity. One moment it's a single two car unit, the next it's 2 units (4 cars). Oh well, guess people had more important things to notice back then. But thanks for sharing, great piece of old NZ
It was a nightmare shooting this. We tried to keep it to 4 coaches all the way through but NZR let us down a couple of times. Most of the interiors were shot at the end with real passangers we recalled. It was also a nightmare with crew shift changes. The Project was a terrific experience for me as director, but without my Kiwi film & train Crew it could never have been made. I still have stills from the shoot if anyone is interested. AH
I was a Steward on the SILVER STAR,and it is really annoying not to find any RU-vid on it!...I now live in Melbourne now...However,the SILVER STAR was a TRAIN OF DREAMS,then Air Travel took off (excuse the pun)...and my train ..and job...were doomed!
Thanks for sharing this. After doing the Tongariro Crossing, I took this great train from National Park back to Auckland on a school trip in the 80s. The food was great, and the seats were comfortable after enduring a tent. Happy days, but what a loss to NZ.
I'd love to see this video, now nearly 50 years old, remastered, digitally enhanced, etc. The last of the Silver Ferns were withdrawn in 2019, and sold in 2020. All gone!
not quite. theyre in the hands of the Pahiatua Railcar Society with 2 of the 3 sets running regular heritage excursions and the 3rd is awaiting restoration as it had been vandalised and left to rot in the elements.
9VBGI, thanks for your info, yes, i thought the credits went by fairly quickly. My presonal thoughts on this was that the editing in places was way out of sync.
Brilliant part of history what a shame it never worked. hope there is someone around still who can tell me where the Silver Fern was washed and cleaned. Left Platform 1 in Auckland , arrived platform 9 Wellington???
The best railcars the NZR had produced up to the early 1970's but the 3 Silver Fern units were ridiculously expensive luxury cars and with a production run of only three railcars the unit cost was $600,000 each in 1971 compared with 100,000 for a 48 seat 62ft stainless steel carriage which would have been 70,000 if a carriage in the style of the Hungarian built wellington units with a toilet and I suppose a 40 seat bus would have been $25,000 then. Other problems it that there was no multiple unit connection between the Silver Fern sets and the timetable was not really any faster than the hotted up Blue Streak twinset railcars that had done the Auckland Wellington daylight service at the time.
The Silver Ferns could run in multiple and NZR wanted to purchase 4 sets so both sets could run in multiple both ways, the Silver Star express was 10 years too late.
