page_title: Mixed train
section_title: New Zealand
hierarchical_section_title: Mixed train / New Zealand
caption_attribution_description: English: View of a train crossing a railway bridge over a river. Photograph taken by Albert Percy Godber, circa 1929.
context_page_description: A mixed train is a train that contains both passenger and freight cars or wagons. Although common in the early days of railways, by the 20th century they were largely confined to branch lines with little traffic. Typically, service was slower, because mixed trains usually involved the shunting of rolling stock at stops along the way. However, some earlier passenger expresses, which also hauled time-sensitive freight in covered goods wagons, would now be termed mixed trains. Generally, toward the end of the mixed train era, shunting at intermediate stops had significantly diminished. Nowadays, most railway passenger and freight services are administered separately.
context_section_description: Mixed trains were once prolific in New Zealand.  Although express trains operated on the main lines, mixed trains served rural branch lines where dedicated passenger services would be uneconomical. On the more significant provincial routes, substituting a mixed train during the off-season was common in the late 19th century (the Rotorua Express), or operating the provincial express twice or thrice weekly while mixed services ran daily (the Taneatua Express).
  The shortcomings of mixed trains for passenger travel led the New Zealand Railways Department to investigate railcar technology in the early 20th century. Overseas designs could not be easily adapted to New Zealand owing to its rugged conditions, 3-foot-6-inch (1.07 m) narrow gauge track, and small loading gauge. Early railcars trials, such as the RM class Model T Ford railbuses, proved unsatisfactory. When successfully introduced from the 1930s, railcars primarily replaced unprofitable provincial carriage trains, and some mixed services in regions such as the West Coast and Taranaki.
  Mixed trains dominated the South Island's more extensive branch-line network, but as private car ownership increased in the 1930s, passenger traffic decreased, closing many rural train routes. However, some mixed services lasted into the 1960s in isolated regions with poor roads. In the North Island, the last mixed trains operated into the 1970s, where services on the North Auckland Line ran until 1976. 
  An updated type of mixed train existed in the South Island for a few years during the 1990s, when a few wagons of express containerised freight were attached to the TranzCoastal Picton–Christchurch express. Unlike prior era mixed trains, with their slow en route shunting, this time-sensitive freight travelled swiftly.
caption: Mixed train, near Hukanui or Ormondville, c.1929.
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