spent the first 18 years of my life living in Gisborne, a city where you can walk from one side to the other in 40 minutes. I didn’t know a single person who ever rode the bus. All I knew of trains was riding the steam train *WA165* out of the city – to Muriwai or Beach Loop – and then taking the bus to Wellington or Auckland.
My mum talks about taking the train from *Gisborne to Wellington* when she was younger, and ever since I first heard that that was possible, I’ve dreamed of a world where I could too.
I’m obsessed with trains. I don’t so much care about the specifics of them – how they work and whatnot – but rather the possibility they represent.
One day, *one day* I might be able to travel back to Tairāwhiti without cramming myself into a tiny Intercity bus seat for 11 hours, or feeling a stranger’s thigh pressed sensually (and sweatily) against my own in the godawful baby plane that is the de Havilland Q300 twin-prop as it rattles its way up the East Coast.
The answer to that is: TRAIN!
But it’s not coming anytime soon.
