page_title: Kingston Flyer
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Kingston Flyer / History
caption_attribution_description: English: The TSS EARNSLAW Meets the Kingston Flyer at the Kingston Warf
context_page_description: The Kingston Flyer is a vintage steam train in the South Island of New Zealand at the southern end of Lake Wakatipu. It used 14 kilometres of preserved track that once formed a part of the Kingston Branch. Originally, Kingston Flyer was a passenger express train between Kingston, Gore, Invercargill, and less frequently, Dunedin. It was operated by the New Zealand Railways from the 1890s to 1957. In 1971, NZR revitalised the service as a tourist venture, later leasing the locomotives and rolling stock in 1982 to a private company. Since then, the Kingston Flyer has been through a number of owners, most recently being owned by the Kingston Flyer Ltd. The company intends on restarting operations in Summer 2020.
context_section_description: 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 government acquired the Waimea Plains Railway and incorporated it into the national network.  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.
  The Flyer 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.
caption: Kingston Flyer and the TSS Earnslaw at the Kingston Quay
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