Karl du Fresne: What history tells us about long-distance passenger trains

My Sydney-domiciled friend and former colleague Robin Bromby, a lifetime railways enthusiast, co-founder of Rails magazine and author of New Zealand Railways: Their Life and Times, sent the following comment on my post about the Restore Passenger Rail fantasists:

Here’s something that the Restore Passenger Rail mob might not like to hear: the body mainly responsible for the demise of passenger trains (and railcars) over the length and breadth of New Zealand was — wait for it — New Zealand Railways (NZR) itself, and that process began almost 100 years ago. It favoured buses for moving people! New Zealanders didn’t much like trains either: since the 1920s, whenever they had an alternative option to trains for travel, they took it. And this applied both to long distance trains and suburban commuter services.