page_title: TranzAlpine
section_title: Increasing popularity
hierarchical_section_title: TranzAlpine / History / Increasing popularity
caption_attribution_description: Locomotive and open viewing platform of TranzAlpine train
context_page_description: The TranzAlpine is a passenger train operated by The Great Journeys of New Zealand in the South Island of New Zealand over the Midland Line; often regarded to be one of the world's great train journeys for the scenery through which it passes. The journey is 223 kilometres one-way, taking almost five hours. There are 16 tunnels and four viaducts, with the Staircase Viaduct elevated as much as 75 metres.
  The train has become increasingly popular, and carried 204,000 passengers in the financial year ending 2007. By 2016, passenger numbers were approximately 130,000 a year, but rising again after the setback of the Christchurch earthquake, and were exceeding pre-earthquake levels.
  All the Great Journeys were suspended on 23 March 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions. A resumption date has yet to be announced for the other services, but TranzAlpine restarted on 4 July.
context_section_description: The TranzAlpine's popularity increased, and on days the Southerner was not operating it was common to see these carriages bolstering the three hard-pressed TranzAlpine carriages. In 1991, a Southerner power-luggage van had the end module away from the handbrake end converted into an open viewing area for passengers to enhance the already spectacular scenery on the route. 
  Realising this increased public attention, and with the success of air-conditioned panorama carriage trains on the North Island Main Trunk, between August 1994 and April 1995, eight carriages (one a former Southerner then InterCity spare buffet car, one a former Endeavour later Southerner servery car, two from the Northerner, two from the Southerner and two from Auckland suburban services) were extensively overhauled and refitted with panorama windows like the earlier TranzAlpine, TranzCoastal (later Coastal Pacific), pressure-ventilated Bay Express and air-conditioned Northerner/Overlander Express trains and seating 50 (day carriages) and 26 (servery carriages), alcove-style, in new seats like those installed in refitted Wairarapa Connection and North Island Main Trunk carriages. An FM class modular van was refitted with a 90kW generator in the central module as opposed to the handbrake end modules on NIMT vans, to facilitate converting one end module into a public open viewing area.
  In 1995, the viewing van had its second end module converted for public access to match the first end. This was to facilitate its being marshalled into the centre of the new train, which was now re-organised into two four-car trainsets in one, separated by the power/baggage van. To compensate for luggage on the reformed train, the original TranzAlpine van was stripped of its generator and made to carry luggage only.
  In 1998, a second van, which was also one of three so fitted as 11 kW power/baggage vans for the original TranzAlpine and Coastal Pacific, was equipped with 90kW generator housed in the central module, for this train.
  Even after the eight air-conditioned carriages were introduced in 1994–1995, the train still borrowed panorama carriages from the Southerner because of the train's increasing popularity.
caption: Open viewing platform of TranzAlpine train
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