It is time the Government supported a return to passenger rail in the South Island. In the *Otago Daily Times* we have recently read many enthusiastic contributions arguing for the return of passenger rail to Dunedin and memorialising the golden days of rail travel before the Southerner was unceremoniously scrapped in 2002.
My contribution to the debate, however, will be different for one very pertinent reason: I am one of the people actually working to bring passenger trains back to the region.
My colleagues and I at the University of Otago last week submitted a report to the Parliamentary Inquiry into the future of inter-regional passenger rail in New Zealand. Our core message is simple: there are no economic reasons for the lack of a regular passenger rail service within New Zealand.
The evidence does not support a situation whereby a few tourist trains trundle around and everyone else depends upon expensive air travel, costly car ownership or slow buses. In countries with similar landscapes and small populations, Norway, Finland and Sweden, Scotland or even Hokkaido in Japan, for example, with per capita GDP similar to New Zealand (barring oil-rich Norway), intercity trains travel large distances between cities similar to Dunedin.
