The Kingston Flyer was a passenger express train operated by the New Zealand Railways Department between the 1890s and 1957. It operated to Kingston from multiple other termini: Gore, Invercargill, and less commonly, Dunedin.
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The Kingston Flyer was introduced in the late 1890s as New Zealand recovered from the Long Depression of the 1880s. During the Long Depression, slow mixed trains that carried both passengers and freight had served the Kingston Branch and Waimea Plains Railway, daily in some years and only a few times per week in others. However, as the economy was revitalised, the Railways Department sought to increase services on the two lines. The Kingston Branch ran north-south between Invercargill and Kingston, while the Waimea Plains Railway diverged from the branch in Lumsden and ran eastwards, meeting the Main South Line in Gore. Mixed services operated to a higher frequency, and dedicated passenger trains were introduced. These services came to be known as the Kingston Flyer, especially the Gore-Kingston services across the Waimea Plains.
When the Flyer was introduced, it served Kingston every weekday. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, it ran Kingston-Gore, where it connected with Main South Line expresses between Dunedin and Invercargill. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, it operated Kingston-Invercargill, using the length of the Kingston Branch. In the early years, services were typically operated by K and V class steam locomotives. At peak periods, especially Christmas and Easter, special services had to be operated to cater for demand, with some operating from Dunedin through to Kingston, where they connected with Lake Wakatipu steamboats to the popular holiday destination of Queenstown. For many years, this was the primary means of travelling to Queenstown.
In the 1930s, passenger numbers declined starkly and the Railways Department looked to cancel its services on the Kingston Branch. This occurred on 4 October 1937, bringing an end to the regular Flyers. An abbreviated service continued to operate across the Waimea Plain to the Kingston Branch junction in Lumsden until 17 September 1945. On both lines, the service was replaced by buses operated by the New Zealand Railways Road Services.
However, this was not the end of the Flyers. The timetables retained a 'runs as required' Kingston Flyer, which typically operated at peak holiday periods between Gore and sometimes Dunedin to Kingston. Patronage was initially heavy, but it declined through the 1950s. 1956 was the last year when Flyers ran each way in the same day, and the final Flyer operated during the 1957 Easter holiday period.
On 26 October 1971, the final regular revenue service to be hauled by a steam locomotive in New Zealand ran, but around this time, the Railways Department announced that it was going to commence operating a heritage steam service in the coming summer. This service was to be a revitalised Kingston Flyer, running twice daily between Lumsden and Kingston with two AB class steam locomotives. It began on 21 December 1971 and proved to be wildly popular, operating during the peak Christmas and Easter seasons and carrying large numbers of passengers. However, due to damage to track by flooding between Lumsden and Garston in February 1979, the service was diverted to operate to other destinations. This damage led to the closure of the Kingston Branch beyond Lumsden, but in 1982, the Kingston Flyer was returned to its hometown to run on 14 km of preserved track between Kingston and Fairlight. It has now passed into private ownership and is operated for tourists and enthusiasts. (The service temporarly ceased in 2009 due to finacial difficulties and the operations put up for sale by the recevers. After a drawn out sale by tender negotiation process, the operations were sold to New Zealand businessman, David Bryce. The Kingston Flyer re-commenced operations in October 2011.)
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